


Caustic, You

by cinnomanchai



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:28:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24441352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnomanchai/pseuds/cinnomanchai
Summary: Shion was faced with rebuilding his life after Nezumi left. After a decade of distance, they meet in an unexpected way.Trigger warning: this content does talk briefly about several dark topics such as depression or suicide.
Relationships: Nezumi & Shion (No. 6), Nezumi/Shion (No. 6)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 45





	1. The Great Disappointment

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, this is the first fanfiction I've written in nearly a decade. I decided to use something nostalgic so I could practice writing again. Feedback is appreciated, thank you.

Disclaimer: I do not own No.6, nor do I own the AFI songs I used as my chapter titles.

It was a cool morning in September when Shion woke up.  
He was 27 years old, his hair had been dyed back to it's natural color to avoid drawing too much attention to himself, and despite this, his body still had the scars from when Nezumi extracted a poisonous bee from the back of his neck.  
A decade had passed since he had seen Nezumi last.  
As time progressed, Shion's concerns with reuniting and reviving an old love had shifted to maintaining his priorities with work and taking care of his mother.  
During this course of time, Shion's mother, Karan, had fallen ill and unexpectedly died, leaving her bakery and her assets to Shion, who sacrificed his own ambitions to keep his mother's livelihood in tact.  
Since the fall of the No.6 center, the population in the city had increased and his goal to keep her memory alive was becoming more and more unrealistic.  
Shion sat at his desk after rubbing his eyes. He yawned and reached for an envelope he had been ignoring for some time.   
Sales had dropped and paying the rent for Karan's bakery had become harder and harder with each passing month.  
Shion sighed and unlatched the plastic golden binding from the outside of the envelope.  
It would be time to renew her lease soon.  
If he couldn't make his payments, he would, for sure, face foreclosure.  
As he skimmed the paperwork, he noticed the rent was increasing, and he rubbed his head, putting the paper back down.

No.6 had all the potential to look at the Eluyrias situation and elicit a positive response to change, but as expected, humanity once again couldn't be bothered to prioritize anything but money.  
Safu died in vain and as this thought shifted through his mind, he shook his head.  
It felt inconcievable to even think this way, even if it were true.  
-  
With the destruction of the wall, Shion had hope for a brighter future.  
He remembered feeling alive and excited about a new beginning, only to find his hope sink further and further away from him as he aged.  
Looking back on it, Shion had for sure, felt disdain for his niavety. He was almost embarassed at himself for even considering that a swarm of killer bees could undo the city's corruption.  
Humanity always has a way of repeating history and if acts of destruction could change the planet, it would have been done already.  
The inhumane crimes of the No.6 district had come to light, but through time, the consequences of their actions did little to sway the city entirely.  
With many of the people involved being dead, there were no convictions and nobody that was alive would take the blame.  
It became all too easy for their descendents to feign ignorance and, almost like it was an act of evangelism, cease the destruction and death of the people living in the west district.  
The piles of dead bodies were replaced with manufacturing warehouses and the markets and shacks were replaced with cheap apartment complexes.  
The people of No.6 and the people of the Western District began to merge together; now living in unison under the city governments, and as the population blended together, businesses began to take advantage.  
Shion was not as optimistic as he used to be and as peace became another selling point for the No.6 businesses, he thought about Nezumi's cynicism and understood it more and more.  
The world as Karan knew it was completely gone; people no longer wanted freshly baked cakes or bread from the bakery.  
They could order it through an intercom and pay half the price for a cheaper production in a larger quantity.  
They could get it quicker as many times as they wanted and that's all that mattered.  
People no longer stopped in for anything more than a bathroom break because Karan's bakery wasn't a corporate owned franchise and Shion didn't have the budget to renovate or redecorate anything.  
There were no logos they could take pictures of and no brands they could exploit online for social validation.  
Her baked goods were made by Shion himself, and sold as they had always been sold, in plain boxes or bags.  
The people of the No.6 district valued shallow social validation and the appearance of luxury more than they did, the food itself, or even the consumption of it.  
And now, as Shion rubbed his forehead at his desk, the last remaining part of his mother's life was disappearing.  
He took in a deep breath and exhaled.  
He had never felt so hopeless and alone.  
\---


	2. This Time Imperfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shion reaches his limit.

Disclaimer: I do not own No.6, nor the AFI songs I used as my chapter titles.

Trigger warning: This chapter mentions suicide.

At 27 years old, there were a number of things Shion had imagined for himself.  
He recalled living in Nezumi's bunker, reading novels to mice and daydreaming about college.  
He thought about ecology, politics, art, music, and love very often.  
Somehow the idea of being completely alone or facing debt weren't things he anticipated, even when the outcome was so obvious in the Western District.  
His childish ignorance had made so many other things seem more realistic at the expense of his time and his knowledge.  
The idea that perhaps, into adulthood, Inukashi and Rikiga would maintain their friendships with him. Maybe they could keep in contact forever and always be as close as they were so many years ago.  
The idea that Safu would live and eventually settle down, having children with a man who could actually give her the love she deserved.  
The idea that Nezumi would love Shion forever and that they'd adapt to living together in a domestic environment, free from any harsh economic disadvantages because after the fall of the Correctional Facility, the world would finally know peace.  
They could work together and make ends meet, never thinking about forclosure or corruption while the world became kinder and the injustices from the outside became distant memories.  
It was a comforting lie.  
Karan was not invincible and she couldn't live forever and this was the life as Shion would know it.  
There were no other relatives to turn to and nobody ever came back or changed.

Time never stopped and the bills never stopped, and as days became years, Shion stopped believing that tomorrow could be another good beginning.

Shion exhaled the cold air as he locked the door to the bakery.  
His head was racing and he couldn't think properly. Everything was becoming a whirl of painful thoughts and with no one to talk to, he couldn't alleviate his depression, so he decided to go for a walk.  
The silence of the bakery was too loud.  
-

Tonight was an especially busy night within the city of No.6.  
People joyously congregated in resturaunts and parking lots as they met, exchanged words, and enjoyed eachother's company.  
The people of this city never thought twice about what they have or the value of what it was even worth.  
They only acknowledged that they were comfortable, that they lived comfortably, and that the people in their lives reflected the same lifestyle.  
Every so often Shion would see a begger on the streets, asking for money to eat.  
People born and raised in the No.6 district would either turn a blind eye to it or give the bare minimum so they could congratulate themselves for their kindness.  
Since the wall was destroyed, a lot of No.6 residents began viewing anyone from the Western District as beneath them, so unless you adapted to their lifestyles or looked like them, they'd think less of you, despite their "outrage" towards the genocides.  
It was sickening.  
Shion passed the begger, bitterly wishing he had enough money to give.  
The crisp September air began to feel just a little bit colder.

Shion made his way past the suburbs to a local park.  
He exhaled cold air again, trying to catch his breath. He could physically feel his depression worsening.  
Shion was holding the cold metal guard rails with his bare hands as he stared at the pond water beneath him.  
It was so disgusting how an act of God murdered Safu, and it was all in vain.  
It was disgusting that Shion had commited murder, himself, and it was all in vain.  
All of these grandiose acts of justice were completely pointless, and in the end, casualties suffered, but nothing ever got better.  
He felt empty.  
As he stared at the darkness ahead of him, Shion started to feel disconnected from his own body.  
His thoughts became abstract words, voices, and memories, and Shion started to feel numb from the inside out.  
Shion wiped his eyes. He could feel his tears as they began to fall.  
There was a reflection of the night sky within the water below him. Without thinking about why, Shion stared at the water.  
"I have nothing to live for," he thought to himself.  
Shion froze for a moment.

The idea of suicide never crossed his mind before. He was uncomfortable but the more he pondered on it, the more sense it began to make for him.  
He spent a good amount of time stuck in contemplation only to give himself a headache, having to think or imagine the conversations he could have had.  
His mother's bakery was going to be foreclosed, he had no credentials or education to do anything else, he was not wealthy and had no wealthy connections to help him figure things out or fix her debt, and to top it all off,  
there was nobody to live for anyways.   
Even if the bank was more forgiving and the city had stayed as it was a decade ago, her small apartment would still be empty and in Shion's life, there would still be nothing.  
Shion dropped to his knees, feeling too weak to stand anymore.  
Losing his mother was unexpected and there was no proper goodbye.  
He never got to tell her how much he loved her or apologize for leaving her as a teenager.  
He never had a chance to really think about the weight of her illnesses, instead praying and hoping that, with a miracle, she could one day recover and get better.  
Then, without a warning, she was gone and there was no cinematic recovery or goodbye.  
She was here. Then she was not.  
Shion felt his tears as they rolled down his cheeks and holding them back had become more and more difficult.  
Safu was dead, her grandmother was dead, Karan was dead, and there was no one else because no one else could stay.  
People grew apart and Shion couldn't fault them for that. He became annoyed with himself for even being so needy.  
As his vision became blurry and his body became exhausted, Shion started to think about what he would do next because in this moment, on this night, he genuinely felt lost.  
Quickly, he lifted himself back onto his feet, adjusted his dark brown jacket and began walking towards a big recreational building.  
It must have been 4 stories high.  
He used to work for this park and he knew how to reach the roof from a set of stairs inside.  
Wiping his cheeks, Shion made up his mind and he didn't give it another moment of consideration.  
Shion felt it was necessary to kill himself tonight.

Crossing the large expanse of grass, Shion was so paralyzed in his own mind that he didn't hear the faint sound of a squeak.  
He typed a code on a pin pad behind the building, leading to the maintenance room and as he did, he started to feel more and more disconnected and tired.  
The night was dark enough to completely conceal him and the park light beside the building wasn't working.  
Shion opened the door and in a dim yellow light, amongst various spider webs and gnats, there was a metal and concrete staircase.  
Shion shut the door and stared at the staircase for awhile.  
It was time to say goodbye. There was no other reason to stay.  
Shion wiped his eyes again as he made his way up the stairs.  
A small mouse followed Shion's footsteps and as it did, Shion heard something in the distance.  
It sounded as though someone figured out he was trespassing.  
Shion was too tired to feel nervous about getting caught.  
He took in another deep breath as he climbed the staircase, hoping that he could just accomplish what he was going to accomplish without being disturbed.  
Hoping that whoever was there would either ignore him or shoot him themselves.  
He didn't care.  
He just wanted to be done.  
After climbing several flights if stairs, Shion pushed open the door to the roof and instantly, the breeze from outside chilled his face.  
Shion leaned against the door, quietly staring at the edge as he slowly walked towards the end of the building.  
There was nothing beneath him but grass.  
Shion's eyes became fixated on the ground beneath him and he pondered if he could even die from only 4 stories.  
The wind blew against his jacket and the mouse that had followed him was frantically running in circles behind him.  
Shion stood still as he observed the path of his fall.  
He felt too exhausted to do anything else and the closer he got to jumping, the more exhausted his body became.  
The more he thought about death, the more numb he felt, like he could just lay where he was and stay that way indefinitely.  
Shion lifted his head, peering across the building at the city lights beyond the trees.  
He didn't want to go back to the empty bakery and he didn't want to live his whole life in isolation.  
He wanted his mother and Safu to come back and he wanted to afford rent.  
He wanted to change the world and he wanted the people of the Western District to live without starving.  
A door had slammed shut with a loud thud. It must have been 20 feet away.  
Shion didn't move. He couldn't snap out of it or make himself more energetic. He didn't want to look behind him because he didn't want to be talked out of this.  
He could hear footsteps approaching louder and louder until a pair of hands gripped his shoulders.  
The hands forcibly pulled him away from the edge.  
Shion didn't look to see who did it.  
A man with dark hair and black clothes yanked him towards the metal door.  
"What are you DOING up here?!" the man shouted.  
Shion shook his head, trying to push the man's hands away.  
Whether or not this man agreed with him, living was pointless. Shion wanted to die.  
"I'm not letting you go! What the FUCK, Shion!"  
The man's voice echoed through Shion's head.  
.  
.  
.  
Shion froze.  
It was Nezumi.


	3. Still A Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shion and Nezumi reunite. Things are not as Nezumi anticipated.

Disclaimer: I do not own no. 6 nor the AFI songs I'm using as chapter titles.

Shion pushed Nezumi's arms off of him.  
He was in shock but the shock began to wear off and it was replaced by anger.  
Nezumi's eyes wided as he dodged Shion's fist.  
"Shion, what are you doing?!" Nezumi shouted. "I just saved you! I'm not trying to fight you!"  
Shion glared at him as he wiped tears from his eyes.  
"You pompous narcissist!" He screamed, stomping his foot.  
The insult struck a chord in Nezumi because hearing those words from Shion shocked him to his core. He didn't know how to respond to it so he had no reaction.  
"It's so easy for you to parade around with your bullshit cynicism just to come back RIGHT now!"  
Shion started looking at the rooftop below him, searching for one of Nezumi's robotic mice.  
He saw it several feet back, it's red eyes blinking faintly in the dark.  
Shion narrowed his eyes in disgust.  
"Of course!" Shion yelled, exhasperated. "Of course you were spying on me this entire time! It figures!"  
Nezumi backed away nervously, with his hands in his pockets.  
He wasn't really expecting Shion to have these kind of responses and he suddenly felt embarassed for even making himself known.  
Nezumi couldn't let Shion kill himself, though. As humiliating and conflicting as this encounter was, Nezumi still didn't regret interveining. He had to stop Shion from jumping.  
"Shion, I know you're angry with me. I'm not going to fight you on your feelings,"  
Shion turned to look at Nezumi after shaking his head in disbelief.

"You have no right to tell me how to feel," Shion said bitterly. This time his voice was low, venomous and quiet.  
This was not at all the warm reception he used to daydream about as a teenager.  
Life had lost it's poetry and reality was becoming more and more difficult to accept.  
Now, more than ever, the beauty that lied in nostalgia was immediately questioned by Shion.  
He wasn't even sure if Nezumi's role in his life could be anything greater than it was.  
After the years of grief and loneliness, Shion was already harboring the idea that everything was just dumb luck without meaning.  
Because Shion was obviously very emotional right now, Nezumi knew he had to choose his words carefully.  
He had only started tracking Shion because one of his bots had found him at the park.  
He still wasn't aware of Shion's personal problems and, undoubtedly, whatever he had gone through between then and now must have had a big impact.  
Nezumi spoke up again, louder with more conviction.  
"I had to leave to figure myself out. Something that WAS selfish, and I can't turn back time and change that! I can only apologize today!"  
Shion dropped to his knees and buried his face in his hands, suddenly overwhelmed.  
Just talking to someone like this was something he hadn't even done in so long.  
Hearing an honest conversation was so alien to Shion these days that even arguing like this was more personal than he was used to. It just reminded him of how much he missed Safu, his mother, and the past.  
To have an actual conversation that was more than discussing bills or taking orders at work.. it really was as refreshing as it was, uncomfortable.  
Nezumi walked forward and kneeled beside Shion as Shion's shoulders went limp. Shion didn't have the energy to keep arguing.  
His body started to feel weak and he felt like he had lost control of himself.  
Everything began to feel numb and Shion was stuck in his head as thoughts floated aimlessly through a thick emptiness.  
The cold September air froze the concrete on his hands and he tuned out, feeling completely disconnected until Nezumi's hands touched his shoulder blades.  
Nezumi rubbed his back as a comforting gesture before sighing.  
"Leaving you after Safu died was unforgivable. I'm aware of that," Nezumi said quietly.  
"I was young and stupid. I emulated stories of grandieur and art because that's what I wanted to be. I thought our time together was like a fictional story so I treated it that way. I treated myself like a protagonist and I'm sorry,"  
Shion didn't say anything, instead pressing his face against the concrete. He exhaled and lied there, motionless, as Nezumi's words echoed through his head.  
Nezumi spoke up again.  
"I know it was narcissistic. I haven't been spying on you for long,"

Silence.

"My bot found you at a nearby park. I just wanted to see if you were okay,"

Silence.

Nezumi looked at the stars above them and then back down at Shion.  
Minutes felt like hours and for so long, Shion didn't acknowledge anything he said or even give a response.  
Had this been anywhere else and had Nezumi not just saved Shion from committing suicide, he, for sure, would have walked away by now.  
Tonight, though, he felt like he couldn't do that because he genuinely didn't trust Shion not to jump and he didn't know if Shion had anyone he could talk to at this hour.  
With a big inhale and a drawn out, deep exhale, Nezumi started walking towards a edge of the concrete wall where the door was.  
He intended to sit down over there but as soon as he walked away, Shion grabbed his pant leg.  
He didn't say anything to Nezumi but Nezumi stopped anyways.

He decided to sit down beside Shion.

The Shion he knew was gone completely.


	4. Do It For Me Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shion is not the same. Nezumi holds himself accountable.

Disclaimer: I do not own No. 6 nor do I own the Angels & Airwaves song I used as a chapter title.

Morning came quickly.  
Nezumi was awakened by a hand shaking his shoulder.  
His eyes jolted open and he looked up to see a security guard shining a flashlight in his face.  
Nezumi winced, holding up his hand to shield his eyes from the excruciating white light.  
"I'm going to have to ask you both to leave," the man said. As he talked, clouds of cold breath formed and dissipated in front of his face.  
Nezumi stood up and straightened his sweatshirt.  
"Sorry," he said "we weren't intentionally trying to cause a disturbance,"  
The security guard looked over at Shion, who was still asleep in a fetal position.  
Shion's long brown coat almost covered his legs and he had pulled the hood of his jacket over his head some time during the night.  
The security guard turned towards him, shining the flashlight on him.  
"What was going on here? Does he need medical attention?"  
Nezumi shook his head as he walked over to Shion.  
"No sir. He just had a bad night and it won't happen again,"  
Shaking Shion's shoulder, Nezumi spoke to him.  
"Shion," he said loudly. "Shion you need to get up. We need to leave,"  
Shion woke and when he did, he groaned, annoyed.  
Lifting himself from the cold concrete, he sat up and his head felt dizzy.  
Looking up at Nezumi and the security guard, Shion felt as though he had a hangover and instantly, he wanted to go back to sleep.  
Nezumi extended his hand to Shion as Shion's vision came into focus.  
It was cold and still very dark out.  
Looking around, Shion slowly began to remember the night before and he pushed Nezumi's hand away as he stood up.  
Nezumi and Shion began to walk towards the doorway as the security guard followed, and as they walked down the stairs, each step began to feel more difficult than the last.  
Once they reached the bottom, Nezumi shook hands with the security guard and they watched as he shut and locked the door with a large padlock.  
Shion rubbed his eyes so hard that he started to see shapes.  
As the security guard walked away, Nezumi leaned towards Shion.  
"Where do you live?"  
Shion sighed and pointed back across the park towards the bakery.  
Nezumi nodded, putting his hand on Shion's shoulder.  
"I'm walking you home," he said.  
The walk back to the bakery was silent and cold.  
The sky was dark with a hint of morning blue. It was obvious that soon, the sun was going to rise and that another day for the city of No.6 would soon begin.  
Shion's legs felt sore and his head felt like it was pounding because he slept on a concrete surface last night. He was freezing so much his legs were numb.  
Somehow, he staggered forward, even when all he wanted to do was sleep.  
As they crossed the bridge, Shion stopped walking and stared back at the pond water, just like the night before.  
Living really did feel useless to him right now. He questioned if Nezumi had actually meant the apology or if he was going to stay at all.  
They were complete strangers all over again and obviously their closeness had deteriorated in time.  
Shion felt so exhausted and so empty that even something as simple as walking over the bridge made him so tired.  
He didn't want to go back to the bakery or be here right now.  
He still wanted to die.  
Nezumi seemed to catch on and put his hand on Shion's shoulder.  
"Are you feeling well enough to walk on your own?"  
Shion took a minute to process his words and gathered enough strength to say something.  
"I can walk," he said quietly.  
Nezumi walked in front of Shion so that they were facing each other.  
He put his hand on Shion's shoulder and asked "What happened to you?"  
Shion turned away, brushing off Nezumi's hand with the back of his own hand.  
He couldn't meet his eyes because he couldn't piece the right words together.  
To say that Safu's death meant nothing or that his mom's death happened so suddenly would be too painful.  
To explain the conflict in it's entirety would take too much work and to really give all of his reasoning, in depth, on why he didn't see a future for himself anymore,  
would take a considerable amount of time.  
Shion looked back down at the pond for a few more minutes before clearing his throat.  
He looked back up at Nezumi.  
"I'm losing my mom's bakery," he said.  
Shion sounded defeated.  
Nezumi asked "So where is your mother? Can you talk to her about your options? Surely her expertise could help your situation,"  
Shion winced, rubbing his forehead, before turning away so he wasn't looking directly at Nezumi. The next thing he knew he'd have to say would be the hardest.  
He could feel tears forming in his eyes and it felt embarrassing to cry in front of him again.  
After everything they had gone through together when they were kids, being this honest and vulnerable felt awful.  
Shion felt overexposed and uncomfortable.  
He felt empty and his heart physically ached.  
So, because the sky was getting brighter and the bustle of cars began to get louder from afar, Shion knew that had to leave this place and he knew he had to go home.  
With another pause, Shion turned to face Nezumi and he wiped the tears from his eyes.  
His expression was blank.  
"My mother's dead," he said.  
-  
Today, despite the need for more money, the bakery would be closed.  
After walking in, Shion took a good hour to work through his grief and Nezumi insisted that Shion rest.  
As Shion slept, Nezumi stayed upstairs in what would have been Karan's livingroom.  
Her couch was a soft grey color and the pillows on it were a light blue.  
He looked at her walls and they were adorned with photographs on Shion through his life; innocent smiles from his childhood, pictures of him and Safu through their adolescence and, right beside her entertainment center, a lone picture of an adult Shion standing next to an older Karan.  
Nezumi noticed that Shion's hair had been dyed again. He thought about how "Shion staying Shion" used to be important to him, so much so, that he had begged Shion not to change.  
He had come to realize, though, how unrealistic those expectations were and how, after a decade, nobody ever stays who they were before.  
Everyone grows past their adolescence and he began to feel guilty for the pressure he put on him. It all felt less justified and romantic and more overbearing and selfish.  
Though Nezumi had once envisioned their meeting to be something romantic, he also noted that that was his own childish naivety.  
When he thought about the grief that had affected Shion so much,  
he started to feel really gross in his own skin for his responsibility in that.  
Feeling too much regret for a past he couldn't change wasn't going to make anything better in present day.  
Nezumi decided that he needed a distraction so he scanned the area for something to do.  
That was when a small desk by the window caught his eyes.  
The desk was old, it's wood was a deep dark brown, and there were papers and envelopes all over it.  
The desk had two drawers and a chair from the bakery perched under it.  
Getting up to walk towards it, Nezumi started to think about the ways he could assist Shion financially.  
Doing odd jobs, Nezumi had acquired a considerable amount of money as he was able to get by without paying rent.  
Though life was quickly changing for the residents of the western district, there were some areas that still remained untouched. Nezumi's home was among those areas.  
He knew whatever choice he made today that he'd have no problem seeing it through because he was fortunate enough to live in simplicity.  
As Nezumi lifted an unlatched envelope, he decided that whatever number he saw, he would do what he could to preserve this place for Shion.  
It was a moral obligation he felt was necessary to fulfill.  
Before he could overlook Shion's lease information, he heard footsteps from the room Shion was in.  
Nezumi sat down at a chair beside the desk and waited for Shion to come out.  
The door opened.  
The bags under Shion's eyes were less noticeable and his face had puffed up a bit.  
He was pale and Nezumi noticed Shion's scar had lost most of it's color, instead being a very faint shade of pink.  
It looked more like a healed indent than anything; like a cut that was deep enough to scar and show through even after the skin was healed.  
The nostalgia of this moment made Nezumi feel unfortunate that he had purposely left Shion, as he once knew him, behind, but seeing Shion with his natural hair color again reminded him of how long they had known eachother.  
Shion walked over to the couch in his livingroom and sat on it in silence.  
As he did, Nezumi noticed the profile of his face and how, despite how much they've aged, maturity had complimented Shion.  
Nezumi thought about whether it would be more appropriate to stay where he was or to go near Shion after rethinking all the time he had lost.  
He decided to sit at the opposite end of the couch so they could talk to each other anyways.  
Shion sat in silence with his elbows resting on his knees.  
His body was lurched forward and his hands scratched through his brown hair.  
Shion had changed from his white collared shirt and black slacks into a faded grey T-shirt and black sweatpants.  
Even his style wasn't at all what it used to be. It was very informal, for once.  
Nezumi spoke up.  
"I have the money for you," he said.  
Shion looked up at him, confused. His eyes were focused on Nezumi and Nezumi took something out of his pocket and placed it in Shion's hand.  
Shion looked at it, confused.  
It was a debit card.  
"I can pay your rent this month and you can keep your mother's memory alive. I owe you this much," Nezumi said, placing his hand over Shion's.  
Shion sighed and shook his head.  
"I appreciate the gesture but you'd only prolonged my foreclosure by another month, at most," he said quietly.  
Shion placed the card back in Nezumi's palm.  
Shion took it upon himself to close Nezumi's fingers around it.  
"Even if I could accept your offer, I'm going to lose her bakery anyways.  
There's so much competition lately that losing it was going to be inevitable,"  
Nezumi reluctantly moved his hand away and stared at his card in thought.  
Somehow the obviousness of his error had slipped past him and it felt embarrassing to realize that because Shion was right.  
So many other businesses built and marketed on convenience are why he lost so many sales and even if he could afford rent for one more month, they could never afford the kind of production a chain restaurant has.  
They could never hire a graphics designer or use commercials and ads for their advertisements.  
Shion's level of business could only grow so far with so many limited resources and as Nezumi thought about this, Shion stood up and walked towards a small kitchenette.  
Turning the knob on the stove, Shion placed a small tea kettle over the burner.  
Water was already in it and he decided he was making tea.  
Shion's stomach began to growl because he hadn't eaten, but even as he looked to the fridge, he didn't feel motivated to eat anything yet.  
Nezumi broke the silence again.  
"I'm going to help you," he said, sternly. "I'm going to help you expand your business and I'm going to do what I can, to the best of my ability, to keep this place for you,"  
Shion smiled in appreciation very briefly but the smile went away as quickly as it appeared.  
The tea kettle began to boil.  
The bubbles from inside it popped and boiled as smoke began to seep through the edge of the spout.  
Shion looked at the floor.  
"I'm not sure if I can accept your offer," he said quietly.  
The tea kettle started to whistle and as it did, Shion and Nezumi stood in their places, not moving or focusing on anything.  
Tension was in the air and it was so thick you could cut it with a knife.  
Shion had waited so long to be with Nezumi again and now that it happened and now that he was offering to do so much, it felt almost surreal.  
Almost like this good thing was a lie and that, like before, this could be taken away too.  
Nezumi noticed Shion was lost in thought so he leaned forward and turned the knob on the stove off.  
He gently moved the kettle to an unheated burner.  
Nezumi spoke up again.  
"I understand that you don't trust me," he said.  
Shion didn't move or look at him. Getting attached right now was something he feared.  
Shion knew that he was in a vulnerable state and he knew that if Nezumi left now, he'd for sure feel worse than before. It made him so uneasy to suddenly be so close to him again after so long when they didn't even know eachother anymore.  
Even if Nezumi had saved his life last night, he could easily have ulterior motives and as appealing as it seemed to have a safety net, Shion wasn't sure what it meant to be indebted to Nezumi, today.  
Nezumi spoke again.  
"You have no obligation to trust me again. Your doubt is very justifiable,"  
Stepping back, so he culd give Shion space, Nezumi said "I couldn't let you die and I'm not letting you lose your mother's bakery. I know grief,"  
Shion looked up at him, eyes blank and lifeless.  
"I can take care of you," he pleaded.  
Against his better judgement, Shion noticed Nezumi's eyes and he recalled how they captured his attention several times before.  
His anger and resentment slowly began to creep away as he began to notice Nezumi's dark, shortened hair, and the way his bangs were still a bit longer than the rest.  
He noticed the black sweatshirt and dark cargo jeans, the worn black socks and Nezumi's boots unlaced by the door.  
Nezumi's face looked more mature but though he had grown into an adult man, he still maintained a certain feminine look to himself, somehow still, without missing a beat, maintaining a sense of natural beauty.  
The past came back and brought a very brief spark to Shion's present day but just as quickly as it came, so did the pain from waiting.  
Shion almost forgot about everything that led him to the rooftop the night before and he tried to keep himself grounded, despite how attracted he was to Nezumi.  
The kiss amongst the rubble, the officer he shot, the blood, the fire, Safu's goodbye, and the dead bodies all melted together in Shion's mind.  
He recalled moments where he'd blissfully read copies of Hamlet and talk to his mother about Nezumi's return.  
He recalled defending himself against Rikiga's judgements, insisting that Nezumi was meant to be his soulmate and that love and fate existed.  
He recalled the way Inukashi had mourned the absence of their friend and how, now taking on the role of a parent, Inukashi had to face their own set of responsibilities, not wanting to focus too much on what they couldn't change.  
Karan used to sit at her small dining room table and tell Shion that "If someone loves you, you will know it,"  
She had given him words of truth and comfort many times before she became ill and each time her message was the exact same.  
Love who you are and the right one will come.  
Shion stopped believing that fate was real but regardless, Nezumi was still standing in front of him, Nezumi was standing with him on the roof top and Nezumi was right here, right now, offering to help him with money.  
Shion walked towards his bedroom.  
He wasn't sure what else to say yet other than "Thank you,"


	5. Forever and A Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roles are reversed. Can Nezumi save Shion?

Disclaimer:I do not own No.6, nor the chapter titles because it's an Offspring song.

Love was a strange thing.

As the evening progressed, memories of a joyous, white haired Shion had floated through Nezumi's mind.  
Moments when Shion spoke happily about their future and moments where Shion could still enjoy the animals and people around him.  
Shion used to talk as though each day were significant and the optimism his teenage heart held used to radiate off of him and affect everyone around him.  
It was hard not to have hope when Shion was around because he was always determind to find a solution to any given problem.  
Seeing him now, Nezumi recognized the depth of his trauma.  
Shion from yesterday and Shion from today were like night and day.  
Somewhere over the past decade, Shion lost what made him Shion but somehow, even after everything, Nezumi couldn't help being drawn to him.  
He understood that his feelings were inappropriate under these circumstances, so he ignored them. It seemed baffling and selfish to even entertain the idea of being a couple, especially when they barely knew eachother anymore.  
There was once a bold innocence that attracted Nezumi to Shion when they were young, and the fact that it was nearly gone felt genuinely saddening.  
This unwavering optimism now clouded by heartbreak and distrust was a hard thing to see.  
Nezumi thought about their kisses, the way they used to dance and how holding eachother or touching eachother used to come naturally.  
It was almost like second nature to speak or act freely, even if the things they said or did were humiliating, but after so long, their interactions were still very controlled and distanced.  
He wondered if Shion could have been different, had he stayed. Was this change inevitable? Nezumi recalled seeing Shion's face the second he killed the correctional facility officer.  
It was obvious that something was different in Shion but rather than examine that and criticize it, Nezumi found himself criticizing his tears.  
Shion had just saved his life, after all. Yet again, though, Nezumi had made that about himself as well because of his personal feelings and his perception of who Shion should be.  
It felt so ungrateful. Nezumi's thoughts went in this direction and he became a bit uncomfortable, wincing as he stared at the ceiling.  
Nezumi never took the time to think about the behavior he emulated or how any of it could have ever affected anyone outside of himself.  
He started to see how easy it would be to say that Nezumi had used Shion for destruction; how Shion was there to help him fulfill his revenge fantasy and how, without skipping a beat, after emotionally investing Shion in himself by kissing him, he really did just run away.  
When he had walked away from the rubble, he only felt cautious and worried; he had seen buildings fall and Shion had died, even if only briefly. Nezumi had blamed himself with no consideration for anyone else involved and though it should have been obvious in his mind, he somehow forgot to register that hundreds of people just died, including Safu.  
Shion would eventually have to think about that.  
Shion would eventually have the bare the burden of guilt, even if most of the deaths were justified. Shion was never the kind of person to hold bitter nihilism, even when the reality he faced was unmistakably cruel.  
Nezumi thought about how hard it must have been for Shion to finally process the weight of what they had done and how, eventually, he had to come to terms with his grief. To lose not only Safu, but her grandmother as well.  
How somehow, through the mix of that, Karan had died also, and where were Inukashi and Rikiga?  
What was so important in Nezumi's journey of self discovery that he couldn't be bothered to come back sooner during all of this? Nezumi couldn't help but guilt himself.  
His thoughts were running about a mile per minute and all of them were self depricating because he couldn't forgive himself for Shion nearly jumping from a building.  
That's the depth of his loneliness and his heartbreak.  
That's the depth of his unresolved trauma and his sadness.  
Shion's life could have been exponentially different had he not met Nezumi and sometimes Nezumi even wondered if Safu would be alive.  
It was disheartening to contemplate but the guilt ate away at him and though Nezumi had passed through the Lost Town many times through the years, he anticipated that Shion could be happier without him. He decided that that was the only realistic outcome so he lost interest in reuniting.  
He thought Shion could find love and that Karan could live much longer; that perhaps Inukashi and Rikiga could stay beside Shion and that everyone could move forward, together.  
Like a fool.  
They could be the exact kind of unit that Nezumi had previously scowled at, seeing his lack of bonds as "strength", when in reality, he realized it was anything, but.  
Looking back, it felt almost gross and disgusting how he had likened himself to various literary characters; adopting their roles and their characteristics as though they were his own and justifying nearly everything he did by likening himself to a tragic hero because of his losses.  
He treated himself as though there were a hierchy of grief and completely neglected the only friend he ever truly had.  
The only lover he had ever truly loved.  
Shion's distance is what Nezumi felt he deserved and the initial shock of being cussed at on a rooftop came back in full force. It made his heart jolt uncomfortably in his chest when it crossed his mind.  
He didn't want to think about what could have happened, had he not been strolling through the No.6 district at that moment.  
He was fortunate that his bot had found Shion and that he wanted to check on him right then and there.  
It felt intrusive and weird, but as Shion walked across the park, Nezumi recalled feeling uncomfortable because something about his demeanor was off.  
It was as though every step Shion took that got him closer to the staircase, darkness seemed to radiate in the air.  
Nezumi never believed in things like fate but his intuition was warning him that something bad was going to happen. So despite his better judgement, Nezumi had thrown caution in the wind to follow,  
and Nezumi didn't want to consider any other scenario.  
Nezumi didn't even want to think about their night on the roof top.  
Thinking like this wasn't beneficial to anyone, anyways.  
Nezumi looked over at the entertainment center.  
He was so lost in thought that he almost forgot where he was.  
He needed to quit thinking.  
-  
Hours had passed and soon the sun had gone down.  
A small lamp on the desk was on and filled the small apartment with a warm orange light.  
Nezumi was still laying on the couch with his arms crossed, contemplating where he could find a spare blanket.  
Because Shion's headache hadn't gone away, he had slept the whole evening away and Nezumi was preparing to follow suit. The apartment was just a little too cool for his liking so he had a hard time getting completely comfortable.  
Having already looked through Shion's paperwork, Nezumi had come up with a plan to fix the situation and he lied on Karan's couch, brainstorming different marketing ideas.  
He could surely find a place on the west end that could produce customized materials in bulk. Something with a logo or a picture on it. Something trendy and eye catching.  
Something that could grab the consumer's attention and attract them to the bakery and something that advertised Shion's products and made them more appealing.  
Having been lost in thought, Nezumi didn't hear Shion get out of bed and he didn't hear the handle turn.  
That's when Shion's bedroom door opened.  
Shion had walked out, yawning, as he slowly made his way to the kitchen.  
He grabbed a small bottle from beside the lower cabinets on his sink and unscrewed the cap.  
It was a water bottle.  
Shion drank from the bottle for what seemed like forever before wiping his mouth and placing the empty bottle in the sink.  
He wanted to recycle it but he didn't have the energy to find his recycle bin.  
Shion suddenly looked at Nezumi.  
"If you're hungry I have leftovers in the fridge and water on the floor,"  
Nezumi sat up, propping himself with his arms resting slightly behind him.  
"Thank you, Shion,"  
As Shion walked to his bedroom he stopped in the livingroom and stared at the couch where Nezumi sat. Nezumi noticed Shion's eyes were fixated in his direction and he became nervous, wondering what Shion was thinking.  
Shion walked towards his bedroom door again, touching the handle, before taking his hands away and thinking for a minute. His fingers curled into a fist as his arm went to his side.  
He had waited so long for this moment and though he initially felt betrayed and angry, he couldn't deny that underneath everything, there was still a hint of excitement.  
Their conversations felt like he could breathe for the first time in days and though he wanted to keep himself guarded, it was hard to keep pretending that he didn't appreciate the company.  
The silence wasn't as loud as before and Shion appreciated being able to speak and be spoken to. At that moment he felt like talking just to talk, to have his communication reciprocated by someone he had a history with.  
Someone who was with him during the most turbulent parts of his childhood.  
Shion felt uncomfortable expressing it so he did the best he could to smother the sentiment without admitting to any of this out loud.  
He didn't want to admit to Nezumi that his will to die lifted from him, like a heavy weight, because he finally wasn't completely alone.  
Shion tried to keep himself guarded for his own good, just in case Nezumi left again, but he found himself slipping because he was so eager to speak.  
Shion turned around.  
"Can I sit with you?"  
Nezumi moved so that he was sitting correctly on the couch with his feet on the floor and Shion walked over to him and sat beside him.  
"Thank you," Shion said softly.  
They sat in silence for a few minutes before Shion yawned.  
He looked towards Nezumi.  
"How long are you going to stay here?" He asked. Shion was unsure if he even wanted to know the answer as soon as the question left his lips.  
Nezumi felt really uncomfortable and started tugging at the sleeve of his sweatshirt.  
"I hadn't really thought about it," he said with unease. "I don't have one set job so there's nothing I can go back to any time soon,"  
Shion nodded, looking back at his feet. He had a hard time getting used to Nezumi's new demeanor.  
He seemed much nicer and less condescending. Shion kept aniticipating Nezumi to say something rude or sarcastic, but it never seemed to happen.  
Shion couldn't believe the words that escaped his lips soon after.  
"I guess, under these circumstances I must be fortunate. I'm glad you're here," Shion said quietly.  
In that moment, Nezumi recalled a few moments where Shion was this exact way many years ago.  
He could recall times when Shion's attraction to him had been obvious and times when his expression was so easy to read, he could see everything he was thinking on his face.  
Nezumi blushed slightly but he shook it off, recognizing that once more, even if Shion had seemed to feel a little better, now was the wrong time for him to feel anything less than platonic.  
Nezumi dismissed his feelings, telling himself that he only missed the past and that last night, Shion had tried to jump off of a building.  
They were essentially both childhood friends and strangers; in this moment, they had more pressing matters to focus on.  
Shion may have been okay right now but his pain had not gone away and he was still grieving, even if he wasn't showing it directly.  
Nezumi would save his personal thoughts for later, when he was alone again.  
"Tomorrow we need to open this place up again," Nezumi said.  
Shion leaned back so that he was against the couch. He rested his head against the cushions and looked up at the ceiling.  
His expression was dull. Perhaps he was still very tired.  
"Tomorrow is Sunday," Shion said. "We're always closed on Sunday,"  
Nezumi wanted to discuss his ideas for the bakery to help Shion's sales, but the words were stuck in his throat because now that the opportunity presented itself, he wasn't sure when the right moment to say these things was.  
Nezumi had planned on spending a few days with Shion before returning to work and going home. He knew that he couldn't just live here indefinitely, not even sure if Shion would want that.  
In the mean time, he also knew that he had plenty of time tomorrow to bring this up, probably at an hour that felt more appropriate.  
Talking about this so late when he was so tired didn't feel like a good decision. The longer he and Shion sat in silence, the more comfortable and tired Nezumi became.  
Nezumi leaned against the couch and propped his feet on Karan's small mahogany coffee table. He yawned and Shion glanced towards him.  
"Nezumi," Shion said quietly. Nezumi's hand covered his yawn and he looked over at Shion, noticing the way Shion's eyelids were halfway closed.  
His exhaustion was noticable.  
Shion thought about Nezumi's apology, his offer to help, and his generosity towards Shion. In the moment when he needed anyone the most, of all people, Nezumi had come into his life again.  
Shion thought about the way he saved his life and his delirious brain likened their meeting to fate.  
Had Shion been more awake, he surely would have been annoyed at the thought of predetermined destinies; typically Shion was much more cynical than this but tonight, he seemed to be floating back and forth between the relief of being talked to and the exhaustion from his worsening depression.  
Shion started to feel disconnected again. He brought himself back by touching Nezumi's hand.  
Nezumi looked down at their hands and then back up at Shion.  
Had they met under kinder circumstances, this could have felt better than it did, but instead, Nezumi was concerned. He wanted to take his hand away from Shion, but he also didn't want Shion to feel rejected or upset.  
As though time had somehow reversed and they hadn't been separated for a decade, Shion leaned towards Nezumi, who was now very alarmed.  
Nezumi pulled away, now very wide awake and concerned.  
"Shion, what are you doing?" Nezumi's voice was frantic.  
Shion didn't have an answer. He felt foolish and disgusting. Shion took his hand off of Nezumi's as though he had just touched fire.  
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.  
Shion looked away, scratching his head. He didn't even understand why he did what he did.  
Could he have just ruined their potential friendship?  
Shion wasn't sure.  
Nezumi spoke up.  
"I can't kiss you tonight," Nezumi said, sitting upright. He looked at Shion's back while Shion had turned away.  
"It doesn't feel right. You're grieving and if I kissed back, I'd feel like I was taking advantage of you,"  
Shion shook his head.  
"You wouldn't be but you're right," Shion said quietly. "I don't know why I did that. It doesn't even make sense,"  
Nezumi reached to put a hand on Shion's shoulder, but his hand froze in the air and he put it back down.  
Shion turned to look at him again. His face was red.  
"I used to think about you coming back and my memories meant so much to me that they're coming into focus again,"  
Nezumi noticed Shion's unease as he put his hand on his forehead nervously and scratched the top of his head.  
Shion took in a breath and spoke again.  
"I just haven't talked to anyone in so long. The silence was driving me crazy but being able to express myself to you. To have a friend again. It feels relieving,"  
Nezumi's eyes met Shion's and he said quietly "I'm going to be here more often. I'm not going to abandon you like I did before,"  
Shion's expression became distorted. Hearing those words out loud felt good but they also felt painful. He felt embarassed that Nezumi had even said them but he was too tired to think clearly.  
With another yawn, Shion stood up and walked back towards his bedroom. He didn't say anything to Nezumi as he crawled onto his bed and fell asleep again.  
Nezumi thought about Shion's attempt to kiss him and felt more flustered than he wanted to ever feel.  
His heart was beating in his throat and he sat very still in the same spot staring at the walls again.  
He would never forgive himself if he had just given in.  
Affection like that has to be genuine and Nezumi would have to earn it.  
He knew Shion was in a bad mental state right now and probably too tired to process why he was doing what he had done.  
Come tomorrow, Shion would be more alert and his mind would be much more focused and sober.  
They could discuss the bakery and develop their friendship all over again.  
Only then, in due time, if Shion still felt the same, Nezumi knew that he'd give in.  
He knew that he was too tired to keep pretending like love or connections with other people were weaknesses.  
Through trial and error, all of Nezumi's former convictions became barriers between himself and his inner peace.  
No human being was built to be completely alone and every belief he had as a teenager would later cause him pain.  
He was getting too hold to harbor that much hatred in his heart for things that hurt him that he knew he could never change.  
The deaths came to an end. It wasn't all completely hopeless.  
The people of the western district may have still been in poverty but now, because of work, even if it was exploitative and tiring, they had more money than they did, before.  
They had the freedom to travel here and explore the city's parks and resturaunts, at least.  
The apartment complexes had running water and electricty, at least.  
He knew that despite his annoyance with the city of No.6 that Shion still needed to survive and that this bakery was all Shion had left of his family.  
The city's genocide was widely criticized and though Nezumi knew he'd always carry resentment in his heart, he also could see when a bad situation wasn't entirely evil anymore.  
With time, Nezumi's nihilism had mellowed out because despite all of their efforts, things still turned out this way and because of that, Nezumi understood how it fueled Shion's bitterness.  
It felt insulting to have seen that much destruction and to have it mostly be in vain.  
This outcome was considerably better, but not the best.  
There was a creak coming from Shion's bedroom.  
Nezumi broke his train of thought as he stared at Shion's bedroom door.  
He was exhausted so he lied on the couch again, arms crossed, trying to preserve his warmth and before he shut his eyes, he watched the door.  
He would find a solution for this problem.  
He had to make this right.  
He had to protect this bakery for Shion.


	6. Something To Believe In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shion revisits the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't updated lately. There's a lot going on.

Disclaimer: I do not own No.6 nor the Offspring song I used as a chapter title.

The next morning came too quickly.  
At some point during the night, Nezumi had gotten up and searched Shion's cabinets for extra blankets.  
He had found a lavender colored knitted blanket; likely a throw blanket for a bed or a couch.  
Nezumi woke up wrapped in it as the sun reflected through the blinds.  
The glow from the reflection shone brightly back at him and when he opened his eyes, he snapped them shut again.  
It was so bright. It must have still been early.  
Lifting his torso from the couch cushions, Nezumi sat up and looked towards the digital clock on the wall behind him.  
He squinted his eyes as the numbers came into focus.  
The time was 8:41 am.  
He expected to wake up much later, but seeing as to how he couldn't sleep last night, waking up this early should have probably been expected.  
It was hard to relax at all lately.

Shion was already awake and sitting at the desk across the room. The desk was right below the clock.  
"Good morning," Nezumi said, looking at Shion.  
The look wasn't intentional, but after a few seconds, Nezumi quickly focused on something else. He didn't want to focus on his personal feelings any more than he had to and he knew that if he kept staring at Shion, he'd have a tougher time smothering his emotions.  
Nezumi suddenly yawned, covering his yawn with his hand.  
It was too early to be thinking about any of that.  
Shion took a sip of his coffee mug, raising his hand, slightly. Though he didn't speak, he still acknowledged Nezumi's greeting with a gesture.  
Nezumi stood up and started straightening his black sweatshirt. He pat his pockets to make sure nothing had fallen out as Shion spoke.  
"Do you still live in the western district?"  
Nezumi nodded, lifting the light purple throw blanket from the couch.  
He started to fold it and smoothed out the creases very carefully.  
"I do," Nezumi said. He began walking towards a far cabinet beside a bathroom, where he had found this blanket last night.  
Nezumi placed the blanket carefully on a shelf beside several other blankets and sheets.  
Nearly everything in this cabinet was floral and pastel colored; it made a lot of sense that Shion's mother had loved flowers.  
As Nezumi walked towards Shion's small dining room table, he sincerely hoped that he hadn't just used something was too sentimental without his permission.  
Shion didn't say anything to indicate that, however, and instead watched as Nezumi turned one of the dining room chairs to face his direction.  
Nezumi sat in the chair across from the desk and Shion.  
As he sat down he suddenly remembered the question Shion had asked and he answered it.  
"I live exactly where I've lived before; I came back after spending some time away,"  
Nezumi crossed his legs and rested one of his arms behind the chair. He watched Shion carefully.  
Shion began to think about his last day in the western district.  
He took another sip from his mug as his eyes focused on the floor, in thought.  
Though their last moments together were chaotic, the chaos somehow never reached Nezumi's underground bunker. It was the perfect place to seek refuge during the "cleansing" operations, which is precisely why, for that period of time, Nezumi's bunker was a steal.  
He had always wondered if Nezumi had gone back there or if Shion could ever find him by looking for him.  
Though the thought had occured more than once, any time Shion was tempted, he had always forgotten how to get there.  
He'd make his way to where the wall once stood and instantly feel miniscule and lost.  
Finding the time throughout the day was already hard enough, but soon his schedule became completely overrun by errands.  
Inukashi and Rikiga were long gone, so the west end had nothing for Shion.  
The Lost Town had Shion's mother and Shion's mother depended on him while she was unwell.  
Not feeling comfortable in complete silence, because it had gone on for too long, Nezumi cleared his throat.  
Shion snapped out of it and looked at Nezumi again.  
"Nothing gets to me so when I came back everything was untouched. It's actually a feat, all things considered,"  
The western district was now almost always under construction but the gentrification of the area never reached where Nezumi lived.  
Although everyone else was adjusting to having more opportunities and leaving their former lifestyles behind, for Nezumi, having stayed under the radar, nothing ever changed.  
Nezumi supposed that perhaps this was because the people buying the land deemed Nezumi's area unappealing for businesses or homes.  
There were never any interruptions or workers for at least several miles and Nezumi was already accustomed to living off of the grid.  
Only recently had he even considered changing his lifestyle, which is what led him to No. 6 to begin with.  
As he watched the world around him progress, he began to rethink his choices. He never really had the opportunity to blend in and live normally;  
having spent nearly two decades full of misanthropy and bitterness, he was becoming more and more exhausting attempting to pretend like any of it was sustainable.  
Nezumi had seen the people of the western district change; no longer living in fear, breathing a bit easier.  
Even under imperfect circumstances, they recognized the value of a simple life.

"Can we go there today?" Shion asked.  
On one hand, reminiscing seemed like it could be a good idea to get Shion's mind off of his problems. They could spend their commute discussing how tomorrow was going to go and Nezumi could muster the courage to bring up the solutions and ideas he had spent the night brain storming.  
They could open the bakery tomorrow morning and Shion could continue business as usual while Nezumi ran errands to help make their products more presentable to the public.  
Things were looking up and with proper planning and budgeting, getting out of this bakery dilemma was entirely possible.  
Hopefully, by this time next month, they could increase their profits and keep Karan's bakery untouched.  
On the other, Shion's emotions had been so unpredictable and sporadic, Nezumi wasn't sure how to properly navigate any of their interactions right now.  
When it came to the past or sentimental discussions with each other, Nezumi began to feel like he was walking on a tight rope.  
Would doing this be irresponsible? Shion had seemed very calm and collected today, but Nezumi knew there was so much more under the surface.  
The Shion sitting in front of him was a stark contrast to the man he had pulled away from the edge of the maintenance building.  
Although it was a risk, Nezumi was cautious about telling Shion "no" ; he was certain that if he had tried to set boundaries for Shion's sake that it could be misconstrued as arrogant and patronizing.  
As he rubbed his forehead, Nezumi sighed.  
Even though it was obvious that he had no right to feign any kind of authority over Shion, he was uneasy with any potential negative impact something like this could trigger.  
Nezumi uncrossed his legs and sat up.  
"We can go, but it's a long trip," Nezumi warned. "We'll have to walk for a few hours,"  
Nezumi had hoped that maybe this could sway Shion to change his mind.  
Shion was persistent.  
"I know," Shion said, suddenly. His retort was quick.  
His voice was assertive.  
Nezumi had guessed that Shion considered his warning "condescending" again.  
Every jab Nezumi had made against Shion's comfortable life had come back to mind, as they did every so often.  
It would be a process having to prove to Shion that he didn't see him as inferior for living in the city, or that, despite the past and the time they spent together, Nezumi genuinely did regard Shion as his equal.  
Nezumi's intentions were good but seeing Shion react this way made him second guess the things he said and how he said them. Had he come across as patronizing this time?  
It slipped right by him and Nezumi's arrogance had become so ingrained with his personality that keeping it in check at all times was difficult.  
Rather than think about this any more, Nezumi sighed and stood up.  
He could feel the beginnings of a tension headache forming and he had to change the conversation before it formed completely.  
Nezumi started walking towards the staircase leading downstairs and he grabbed his boots from the wooden entryway.  
"The earlier the better," Nezumi said as he loosened the laces. He then knelt down and put his boots on his feet before tightening the laces and tying them.  
Shion walked towards the kitchenette, placing his empty mug in the sink before rushing across the apartment, opening his hall closet to pull out a black jacket.  
As Shion put the jacket on, Nezumi noticed that Shion had the same grey shirt and the same black sweatpants from the night before.  
In Shion's hands were a pair of black tennis shoes and Nezumi realized that he had never seen Shion dress this way.  
Everything was so dark and it didn't seem like anything Shion from before would ever wear.  
With his dyed brown hair, he looked solemn and serious. When did Shion get so dark?  
With his boots laced and Shion's shoes now tied, Nezumi started walking down the wooden staircase.  
The bakery was empty and cold today.  
As they walked towards the entrance, Nezumi took a quick scan of Karan's restaurant.  
It was interesting to see where Shion had grown up and worked. Karan must have been a good mother.  
Her bakery radiated the kind of motherly energy Nezumi would expect from a woman who raised a son like Shion.  
Pictures of Karan's pastries were on the walls, on display, and her tables were small café tables with only two seats.  
The shades that were pulled down over the large glass windows were a soft brown and Nezumi imagined how peaceful this place must look on bright sunny mornings.  
The vibe everything gave off was simple and yet serene. It was bizarre that their business had declined at all.  
Before Nezumi knew it, they had reached the entrance and Shion was already locking the front door.  
As he shoved his hands back in his pockets, Shion looked to Nezumi for guidance and Nezumi began walking down the street.  
It would take them some time to reach the district lines, but making this trip was important for Shion; even if Nezumi was nervous about the outcome.  
As he anticipated the long walk ahead of them, he sorely wished he had a car.  
-  
An hour had passed.  
Images of a small suburban city with little brick houses and green lawns had become empty fields and trailer homes.  
Businesses became much smaller and the architecture of the shopping centers became worn and corroded. Signs were faded by the sun and billboards, if there were any, were torn at the seams as their signs blew with the wind.  
Shion looked around. Though he couldn't remember seeing these things before, something about this area felt familiar.  
Even if there were houses, they were always small and cheaply made; sometimes they even had metal bars on the windows and doors.  
There were always expanses of land with dead grass between the homes and as they walked, Shion felt the ground change texture.  
The pavement was now gravel and dirt. It was hard to walk in boots without almost slipping, but to save face, Nezumi was cautious with his steps. Shion barely noticed.  
Unsure when they had passed where the wall once stood, it was now obvious that they reached the western district.  
Shion's silence became uncomfortable and it became obvious that they hadn't talked to each other for an unsettling amount of time.  
Nezumi decided to break the silence for the sake of his sanity.  
Nezumi asked "Are you okay?"  
Shion shrugged. They walked past a broken mailbox and a small mechanics shop.  
"I'm about as good as I'm going to be," Shion said quietly. "I don't mean to be so bitter but it's hard to feel anything anymore,"  
Nezumi nodded.  
The process of grief was a difficult one; sometimes it took years to fully recover and after everything Shion had gone through, he knew he had to choose his words carefully.  
He knew that he didn't have the credentials to fully take on Shion's grief head first, even if he had lost his family, too.  
He wasn't sure how much he could say or what he could share, so Nezumi thought about his words for a minute before responding.  
"I used to feel that way a lot," Nezumi said, looking forward. He thought about his adolescence and what it felt like to be shot at and chased by correctional officers.  
He thought about pieces of his history that had become fuzzy white mental blocks. Every now and then, when he looked back, he could feel the pain all over again, but if he didn't focus too hard on it, he could pretend it didn't exist anymore.  
Nezumi worked hard to feel disconnected from the pain. He called this "moving on" and "healing" but in the back of his mind, he knew it probably wasn't healthy or ideal.  
He became worried about Shion and how Shion would process his own grief. He had already changed so much.  
Who would Shion be by the time he processed everything completely?  
"The sun doesn't feel bright anymore," Shion said, almost as if he could read Nezumi's mind.  
Nezumi looked at him as Shion looked down, his expression somber. Shion looked angry as he watched the breeze blow small rocks in loose dirt.  
They were now walking on a dirt road, making their way towards a small desert. Somehow, even here, the wind was still cool and the September air was still cold.  
The breeze blew dead leaves and trash in the distance. Nezumi could hear the scraping sound as they landed on a driveway.  
"Meeting you again has been nice. But a piece of me is gone and I don't know if I can get it back," Shion said, honestly.  
Shion then looked back at Nezumi. Their eyes met again and this time, Nezumi saw an expression he couldn't define properly.  
Shion looked exhausted and upset, but he also looked concerned as he asked,  
"How do you go on knowing that everything is pointless?"  
Nezumi stopped walking. He shook his head. He couldn't entertain this because he would have to remember things he didn't want to remember.  
"Nothing is pointless," he argued, crossing his arms.  
Shion pointed behind them, in the direction of No.6.  
"Everything is pointless!" He shouted, "Thousands of people died and nothing has changed! We all just get older and corrupt people never face justice! We can't bring anyone back and everyone pretends like it never happened!"  
Nezumi was annoyed now.  
He tried reminding himself that Shion's experiences were different from his and that obviously Shion's perspective, living in No.6, wouldn't be the same as Nezumi's.  
It wasn't inherently a terrible thing, but it felt really insulting to have seen so much growth from the western district just to hear that this was still THE worst possible outcome.  
As if the people of the western district were tragic and suffering when young children could at least EAT every night; when families who relied on fire and DOGS to keep warm now had electricity and heaters. They had plumbing systems and running water!  
Of course, that's not to say that the corruption in No.6's government didn't need to be addressed. Quite the contrary.  
But to act as though everyone was living in complete and total anguish after everything when they had already seen their darkest days was just.... Nezumi wasn't even sure how to describe it.  
It's not that he hadn't thought about this too, it's that they were both standing in the middle of a desert, with hardly any power to their names and the world moved on.  
That's just how things were and although they had destroyed buildings and walls before, that proved to only be semi useful. The good that came from that was small, but it wasn't completely worthless or pointless.  
They DID still make a change for some of the people who really needed it, and even if they didn't live in nice houses with little white picket fences, they didn't have to hide or worry about being murdered aimlessly.  
After that Nezumi didn't really know what to do.  
Shion was crying now. He was so angry.  
"I used to look at you and think we could save the world!" Shion said, his voice raised.  
"All of these people died and the only apology they get is a stupid commercial with stupid piano music. Stupid slogans and a stupid holiday,"  
Shion wiped his eyes again, annoyed at his own tears for even being there. He felt so embarrassed to be crying right here, right now.  
Nezumi moved forward, trying to wipe Shion's eyes for him.  
He was still heartbroken from the past and Nezumi decided that, all things considered, he couldn't blame him.  
"Are kids still starving here? Do you know if families can even afford food?"  
"Of course they have food!" Nezumi shouted. Shion was annoying him but only because his political speech came from a man who's never starved a day in his life.  
Shion had all of these assumptions about modern life in the western district but Nezumi knew Shion hadn't visited in a long time. How could he be so certain about something he was very ignorant to?  
Nezumi tried to push his criticisms to the back of his mind; he knew Shion meant well and that he likely wasn't intending on sounding offensive.  
Nezumi's voice was annoyed, but he tried to mask it because the last thing he needed to do was reprimand Shion while Shion was in a fragile state.  
Making him feel bad for caring about other people when he was still mourning was counter productive. There's no way this conversation could progress or end positively if Nezumi responded to this without any consideration.  
Shion had seen the poverty-stricken western district prone to genocides and death.  
Shion only knew of the fires and the military tanks; he had climbed a pile of dead bodies and walked the streets with people who struggled to survive.  
It was endearing that Shion wanted more for everyone but Nezumi had wished Shion could understand that he can both, hold those views, and recognize progress.  
"The people here aren't suffering on the streets anymore. They have jobs, they work, and they have running water. They have electricity!" Nezumi reassured.  
Shion glared at him, wiping his eyes. Nezumi couldn't read his expression. Was he angry at Nezumi for arguing with him or was he angry at himself? Nezumi couldn't tell.  
This conversation was so exhausting.  
Nezumi closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. He was going to get really argumentative really quickly if he didn't compose himself.  
Shion had good intentions. It's not like Shion's concerns were completely invalid.  
Nezumi exhaled, rubbing his head again. He could feel his tension headache coming back.  
"Nobody is having to beg or degrade themselves for money or food," he said "the people here are given opportunities we didn't have a decade ago,"  
They started walking again as Shion continued wiping his eyes. His insides became cold again and he could feel depression sink to the pit of his stomach.  
He started feeling detached again. For a few minutes, everything around them became static and moving his legs to walk forward became difficult.  
Like his time on the roof, Shion felt exhausted and tired once more.  
Everything became mute and he lost focus for several minutes.  
As they walked, the scenery became familiar and in the far distance, Nezumi could see buildings along the horizon. By the time Shion came back into focus, the sun was above them and the dirt road had become dead grass.  
Shion sighed deeply.  
He could hear the sound of grasshoppers flying in the distance. He glanced at his pant legs and small light grass burrs stuck to the fabric.  
Bending down to lift one, Shion held it in his hands and examined the sharp edges.  
He stood up again, keeping it in his hand as he and Nezumi made their way forward.  
They had walked in silence and it didn't feel real; as though he were going through the motions but not really present. Every time he felt himself slip away, he pressed the burr into his fingers and the pain brought him back to present day.  
Now he was embarrassed and Nezumi's criticisms came back to mind.  
Small things he had once said about him living a privileged life or being too soft; decade old comments that began to feel relevant today.  
Shion wanted to ask Nezumi if he had matured or changed, but he rejected the idea.  
Why did he need Nezumi's validation anymore?  
-  
Shion was out of breath as they climbed onto Nezumi's cellar. He could feel the grass burrs scratching his legs but his exhaustion distracted him from it. He'd deal with it later.  
Nezumi smiled.  
The first time he and Shion travelled to this cellar, Shion was also out of breath and even after an entire lifetime of adversity, this proved to be the only true constant.  
Shion had flopped over on to his back and shielded his eyes from the sun above them. The faint sound of wasps and grasshoppers buzzed in the distance.  
Though it was cold outside, apparently it wasn't cold enough for the insects to die yet.  
An interesting observation.  
Shion sat up as he tried to catch his breath.  
He threw off his jacket. His entire body was sore and he was so tired. He didn't want to get up.  
Nezumi extended his hand to Shion and Shion took it, sitting upright. He grabbed his black jacket from the door.  
"Do you have anything to drink?" Shion asked. He bent so his hands were on his knees. Nezumi shrugged before kneeling to the bunker entrance and turning the wheel.  
He lifted the metal door to his cellar. The door was thick and heavy.  
As the sunlight seeped into the darkness, Shion could see dust particles floating in the air.  
"Probably," Nezumi said, looking back at Shion.  
"They built a few chain stores here so food's more accessible. I don't eat rotten food anymore,"  
"That's great," Shion said.  
Nezumi gestured for Shion to go inside so Shion walked past Nezumi as he descended the cellar stairs.  
He watched as Nezumi shut the door and locked it, latching the entrance closed. He pushed against the door to make sure it was locked before finding the guard rail.  
Nezumi made his way down the stairs to meet Shion, who was standing on a concrete floor.  
"Do you still remember the way?" Nezumi asked.  
Shion squinted his eyes.  
Everything was very dark and the only light inside came from the vents above them. There were spiderwebs and dead gnats in the corners.  
Nezumi pointed to the left behind Shion.  
"It's over here," he said, walking past as he unlocked his door.  
The door to Nezumi's home was a large metal door and it could be unlocked with two deadbolt keys.  
As Nezumi unlocked it, he exhaled, pushing it open and Nezumi reached towards the wall, flipping on a light switch.  
Shion was taken aback.  
Nezumi didn't have electricity before; he wondered when he had this installed.  
Suddenly the door slammed and Shion could hear Nezumi lock both locks.

For some reason he had never thought about it before, but considering the nuclear war from the past, he wondered if being a storm shelter was this bunker's intended purpose.  
As he stood in the main room, the bright warm light felt depressing, but familiar; there were no windows so there was no natural lighting. 

Shion never noticed the ventilation system from above them, which is why it was so easy to breathe. These are things Shion never considered in his teens.

Shion placed his coat on a nearby chair.

After living outside for so long, the memory of this bunker seemed very misleading, but Shion took it all in anyways. He never thought he'd come here again.

Shion's nostalgia had for sure misled him but this was a place he wanted to see more than anything. 

This was where he had stayed during the most turbulent part of his life.

Nezumi started walking towards the kitchen.

There was a small, miniature fridge plugged into the wall and in that fridge, there were water bottles.  
Nezumi gave one to Shion.  
"You're in luck," he said, "I actually had something here today,"  
Shion accepted the bottle and sat on Nezumi's bed.

This was Nezumi's room.  
This was a room where Shion had spent several months living together with Nezumi and this was where he had first fallen in love.  
Shion had daydreamed about coming back here many times through the years so being here, finally, in person felt very surreal.  
It was strange to see that Nezumi had become acquainted with modern necessities, but it was also really nice because Shion started second guessing his bitterness.  
What Nezumi had said to him earlier started to make more sense. Things were better than they would have been otherwise.  
Even Nezumi had cold water, clean food, and electricity; he started feeling shame towards his assumptions from earlier and he avoided Nezumi's eyes, annoyed with himself.  
He really did emulate the behavior of someone who grew up spoiled and assumptions about whether or not Nezumi was judging him went through his mind.  
Shion took a drink of water before screwing the cap back on and looking around.  
Small robotic mice and tools were lying on a nearby table. Notebooks and pens were beside them with a stack of cards.  
Shion looked above them to see a large book case.  
"Do you still read any of these books?" Shion asked.  
Nezumi shook his head.  
"It was a phase," he said quietly. "I still love to read but my tastes have expanded. Frankly, I feel like Shakespeare is overrated,"  
Shion was confused. He never thought he'd see the day when Nezumi ever talked badly about any of his literary interests.  
"So... I'm assuming you don't act anymore either?"  
"I do," Nezumi said, picking the grass burrs from his own pant legs.  
They were poking him and it was getting annoying.  
"I just don't like Shakespeare that much. I never understood the humor in his work. Now that I see it, I feel silly reading it,"

Nezumi's explanation went unquestioned by Shion but the truth was, Nezumi's relationship with the past was a difficult one.

Any time he flipped open a book and tried to read anything, the guilt of who he used to be tainted the pages. Every narcissistic trait he emulated and any sense of authority he used to feel went through his head again and it genuinely felt awful.

When he read about characters he used to love, he only remembered his lack of social consciousness; 

The relationship dynamic between Shion and himself was very unhealthy.

It was structured like that of a teacher and a student; listen to what I say or you're stupid. I know true pain and my wisdom can teach you how to survive.

Shion humored that when they were young and fought so hard for Nezumi's validation; to be seen as an equal when the qualifications were bullshit from the beginning. As if both of them weren't young, ignorant, and made of the same exact flesh and bone.

It felt so disgusting.

Even talking about this now felt gross and as the conversation progressed, Shion said "I've been interested in George Orwell,"

Shifting his focus to Shion again, Nezumi was surprised. He wasn't sure if he wanted an elaboration on this but he responded anyways out of curiosity.

"George Orwell? Animal Farm?"

Shion nodded.

"He wrote Animal Farm too. Though my favorite book so far is '1984'. I've gotten very attached to the story," he said quietly. "It's worth the read,"

Nezumi was concerned before, but after recalling the characters and the in depth premise of this book, Nezumi looked back at Shion, genuinely worried.  
It was easy to correlate the connection between this book and Shion's perspective. 

"Good did come from the destruction of that facility," he said quietly.  
Shion shook his head.

"A little bit of good, maybe, but things are still unfair," he said. "It's nice that the people of the west district are living more comfortably. I just feel like we could have done more for them,"  
Nezumi shook his head.

"There are things in life that will always be unfair. I don't know why most of what we lived through even happened. I can't give you justifications for the bees, for the death or for Eluyrias," he said, "but I feel like preserving this mindset is unhealthy. No. 6 isn't a fascist regime anymore,"

Shion leaned against the wall, looking up at the book case in front of them. There Nezumi was again, treating him like a child. 

He thought about the book's take on propaganda, the way No.6 used to emulate it, and how, just miles away, there was constant death.

He thought about the manipulation of information in the No.6 district, the banned books, the banned curricular classes, the banned movies, and the way the people of No.6 used to live comfortably, almost like domesticated house pets.

Safu's grandmother lived such an easy life that she found herself making blankets and clothes because nothing else could fill her time; Shion's mother used to live in silence and monotony while, just outside, Nezumi escaped gunshots and bled, making his way to Shion's bedroom and hiding from correctional officers.

The world of No.6 had lost it's eerie perfectionism but there was still more that had to be done. 

The city no longer banned books or movies, but everything, to a point, seemed controlled as if their freedom was just a façade. It had to be. 

Shion couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to what he was seeing than progress and ignorance. There had to be an explanation for it because there's no way that peace could be this linear. There had to be something under the surface besides just ungrateful residents and big businesses.

Without intentionally trying to, Shion began thinking about the truck full of people that were corralled like animals to a slaughterhouse. 

He thought about the stench of dead bodies, the knitting needle that broke his fall, and the obvious privilege that was still obvious in No.6 today.

How did Nezumi expect him just to let that go? To watch it all burn down and to pretend like everything was normal again. To pretend like, falling from a truck like trash into a dumpster, that evil couldn't still lurk within No.6's government, or that, regardless of whatever progress they made,  
patterns couldn't repeat and that corruption and greed couldn't cause destruction again?

Any time something big happened, politically, the conversations Shion overheard were drenched in ignorance and thoughtlessness. He remembered the same kind of language being used from his childhood and he had a hard time relaxing.

He felt as though destruction and selfishness were ingrained with the city, now only lurking under the surface, in the shadows like snakes in the dark. They had been exposed for what they had done before so now they had to be more careful.

Because of the genocide it had become so much quieter, but Shion had a hard time doubting that this could all happen again and again.

As Nezumi suspected, being here was counter productive; they hadn't yet discussed the bakery and now Shion was obsessed with the idea of a potential fascist regime.

Nezumi shook his shoulder.  
Shion looked at Nezumi. His expression was pale and he was afraid.  
Nezumi spoke up.  
"What happened before is not the same as what's happening now," he said quietly. "What we saw is nothing like anything we'll ever see again,"  
"How can you be so sure?" Shion asked. Nezumi shook his head.  
Dear god, his tension headache was coming back.  
"Because we're not being treated like dogs," Nezumi said, snapping. "We're treated with dignity and respect. We can travel freely and we can work. We're never going to be upper middle class but living this way is not the worst way!"

Nezumi stood up, rubbing his head.  
He wasn't trying to argue with Shion. He remembered, again, how he lacked the credentials to take on Shion's fears or his feelings; obviously it was all just grief. 

Shion had years to think through and process what he had seen and understandably, his trauma created paranoia. Shion couldn't make peace with the past so he lived in bitterness and fear. It was a human reaction. Nezumi saw versions of his past self reflected in Shion, today.

Nezumi needed to clear his head.  
He started pacing, rubbing his forehead.

He was speechless and couldn't figure out the right way to tell Shion that they were too poor and too uneducated to change the construct of an entire city. 

An entire subset of large cities.  
Besides voting and protesting and blending in with society, there was almost little to nothing they could do all by themselves. Even thinking this way was completely pointless because even if the government was corrupt and people in the western district were entitled to much more, there were no militarized police forces shooting at citizens anymore and there were no cleansing operations and war tanks.  
There was so much good to acknowledge and to see in the world if only Shion would open his eyes to see it.

Shion was projecting his pain and biting off more than he could chew.

This wasn't like destroying the correctional facility or destroying the wall.

Shion was worried about history repeating itself and he was causing himself grief at the expense of realism and rationality. He was reading books that fit his narrative and directly reflected his past, but the issue was that while doing this, he was neglecting his future.

Nezumi knew somewhere deep in Shion's mind, he was probably trying to find solutions to start again; try all over again and save Safu. To try again and save the world. To change the outcome.

Try all over again and Karan would never get sick, Nezumi would never leave, and life could be idealistic.  
Maybe he felt like, if he didn't try again, the world around him could collapse and more people could die.

Shion's savior complex was worsened by his grief and it was borderline offensive.  
Nezumi plopped onto his bed beside Shion.  
Shion sat quietly holding his chin with the palm of his hand as he stared down at his crossed legs.  
He started picking the burrs from his pants too. They'd get stuck on the tips of his fingers and he watched them hang in place, barely processing the pain.  
"I promise the world you saw before isn't the world we live in today," Nezumi said quietly. He kept his hand on his forehead, trying to make the pulsing in his head stop.  
Shion sighed.  
Suddenly this entire conversation felt childish. Shion felt shame for his feelings and he felt ignorant.  
Had he been unnecessarily angry? Was there room to rethink his perspective and change it?  
"I'm sorry I've been so dreary, Nezumi," he said quietly. He felt so emotional and reactive that he wasn't sure if he even had any jurisdiction to say the things he said or think the way he thought.  
He never thought twice about it until Nezumi argued with him.  
Now he wondered if maybe his bitterness was just grief and ignorance. Maybe his nihilistic pessimism was just the product of trauma and loneliness.  
Nezumi put his hand on Shion's hand.  
Shion looked down. Before he could say anything about it, Nezumi took it away.  
He had been trying to comfort him, but Shion understood that he was trying to be careful.  
"From the moment I saw them burn my village to the moment I kissed you on the rubble, you taught me several things about the world," he said quietly.  
Shion's eyes met Nezumi's.  
"I don't carry the same beliefs I held because they aren't sustainable. There are things we can't change and the past is one of them.  
All we can do is appreciate what we have and accept the truth,"

Shion stayed quiet. He reached for Nezumi's hand again and he felt more comfortable, holding it close to him. Nezumi placed his other hand over Shion's hand. He sat up.

"The genocide stopped. People are working. Food isn't rotten and water is clean.  
It's okay,"

Silence filled the air as they sat together.

Nezumi took his hand back and covered his eyes with his palms because the light was too bright and his head officially hurt. As soon as Shion mentioned George Orwell he had a feeling that their conversation would reach this point.

He had hoped that he had offered Shion enough insight; enough to say that just because life isn't perfect or the outcome isn't ideal, it doesn't mean that they failed or that they were doomed to suffer again and again.

Sometimes simplicity could be enough. It wasn't ideal but people were living.

That's all they wanted to do.


	7. Safe Tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patterns seem to repeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, sorry for the late update. I couldn't figure out which direction to take this fanfic, I've been preoccupied with other things, and for the most part, I just didn't have time to really sit down and write last week.
> 
> Things are back to normal now. 
> 
> Sort of.

Disclaimer: I don't own No.6 or the chapter title, which is an Antiflag song.

-

To say that the following days were fulfilling would be an understatement.  
Nezumi paid Shion's rent and Shion had bargained with his landlord for the chance to sign another lease.  
Together, they had worked to attract more customers to Shion's bakery as they utilized the internet to research the different things they would need.  
After having renovated the dining area (now peanut brown with white base boards) and investing in better looking packaging supplies, Shion had gained traction.  
At the end of the week as he counted his drawer, he had come to realize that for the first time in nearly 10 years, they were bringing in a comfortable profit.  
Fortunately, with the rise of minimalism, the cost it took to bring more aesthetic appeal to the bakery was exponentially smaller than it otherwise could have been; for which both Nezumi and Shion were grateful.  
However, the time had come for Nezumi to go back to work.  
Nezumi sat at a café table as he thought about this; it wouldn't be easy having to leave Shion again, but he knew it was something he had to do.  
It couldn't be avoided any longer; his obligations were put on hold and as the week went on, he found himself recycling the same outfits again and again.  
Nothing in the apartment belonged to him and it became more and more apparent as his view shifted from his cup of tea to his shirt sleeve.  
He was wearing Shion's clothes. (thankfully, Shion's clothes had gotten darker.)   
Because of this, Nezumi began to feel intrusive, unproductive, and lazy.  
Though Nezumi had saved a considerable amount and though his bills were very few, he couldn't shake the feeling of irresponsibility from his head.  
Staying over with Shion, talking with Shion, helping Shion with his bakery... it seemed anything but productive because he genuinely didn't feel like he was working at all.  
Their mornings were early and taking orders was a whirl; somehow the hours flew past him as their profits increased, but even as they counted their drawer, day in and day out Nezumi felt like something was missing.  
Like, despite their time together, there was something else he could be doing that could benefit them.  
As Shion pulled the shades down, Nezumi watched him from a nearby café table.  
Shion's white roots were growing in and they glistened in the dim lamp lights.   
Because the bakery was dark, Shion's scar had a bit more color and as he noticed this, Nezumi smiled, being quick to hide it from under his hand.  
Shion's upbeat mood seemed to match his physical appearance and though it had been almost impossible before, Nezumi was beginning to see reflections of Shion's former self.  
Even as old as they were and as much as they'd changed, Nezumi still felt warmth in his heart when he thought of what Shion meant to him.  
His face suddenly became heated but fortunately, the dim lighting hid it.  
Nezumi shook his head, feeling embarrassed. Even if he had grown and learned to embrace human connections, he still wasn't completely comfortable with the idea of love or romance just yet.  
Thinking about it was one thing; actually being present in the moment, red in the face, admiring Shion from across a bakery was entirely different. It was too real and too soon.  
Nezumi pretended to be preoccupied with his cup of tea as he tried to focus on anything but this.  
"This has been a really good week," Shion said, untying his apron. He smiled as he looked directly at Nezumi, his eyes resembling small half moons.  
He had a giddiness to his voice that Nezumi hadn't heard in years. It was beautiful.  
As Shion locked the front door and rushed across the bakery, he seemed lighter on his feet and his entire demeanor was joyful.   
Nezumi started to feel guilty about what he had to do tonight.   
Although he was certain that Shion was on much better terms, he didn't want to tell him that he had to go again. Even thinking about it after everything felt taboo.  
Nezumi's eyes followed him as Shion shut the doors to his dish table.   
The atmosphere in the bakery had become alive, joyful, and busy. It was anything but cold and empty now.  
Nezumi listened in as Shion filled the dish table with baking sheets and utensils. To even have that many dishes to wash at the end of a shift was an accomplishment.  
It was just another way to signify that their plans had been successful. That Karan's bakery would live on.  
As Shion pressed a button, a green light illuminated the far side of Shion's bakery, towards his kitchen.   
Everything around Shion was so clean and so rejuvenated; There were no stale cakes or loaves of bread to throw out. Nothing was wasted tonight and it was a blessing.  
Shion made his way back to Nezumi, and as he did, Nezumi silently ran through the words he was preparing to say.  
Shion was smiling but he was out of breath as he sat down. His chair was directly facing Nezumi's and he grabbed Nezumi's hands as he leaned forward.  
Shion's smile grew wider.  
"My mother would have been proud," he said quietly. Nezumi could hear the excitement in Shion's voice and he somberly looked at their hands.  
Nezumi took his hand away and Shion's expression changed.  
The once smiling face was now confused and worried. Nezumi could see fear in Shion's eyes.  
"I have to go back to work," Nezumi said quietly, looking away.  
Shion tilted his head, confused.  
"You could work here," he said. "I need your help and you can live with me upstairs,"  
Shion grabbed Nezumi's hand back and this time he was squeezing it.   
Nezumi felt the pressure from Shion's fingers as they dug into his skin and he looked Shion directly in the eyes.  
Nezumi's face was now serious.  
"I still have to obligations to keep back on the west end. If I just abandon everything and leave without planning, it could affect my chances of coming back if I needed to,"  
Shion sighed and let go of Nezumi.  
Somehow after a week of pulling themselves together, he had forgotten that before he and Nezumi even met again that Nezumi had his own life.  
Nezumi had his own arrangements, Nezumi made his own money, and if it weren't for Nezumi and his own self sufficiency, there's no way they could have done any of the things they had done this week.  
If Nezumi really were just a nomad, they couldn't have afforded to give the bakery a second head start and Shion knew the circumstances he could have faced would have been much more painful.  
Nezumi's responsibilities saved him from that and it was an act of altruism that Shion felt he didn't entirely deserve.  
Suddenly, even expecting Nezumi to stay felt inappropriate.  
Shion felt embarrassed and he was annoyed with himself. It was obvious that this would be the outcome.  
Though he knew Nezumi had promised not to leave for good, Shion still couldn't shake the feeling that tonight could be the last night he could speak with Nezumi.  
He tried to rationalize with himself and to remind himself that they were starting again; that there was no reason for Nezumi to leave him completely;   
Nezumi had even expressed his concerns for Shion time and time again.  
This couldn't be a permanent goodbye.  
Shion's mind began to race as he struggled to make sense of his and Nezumi's time together. Several minutes of silence passed between them as Shion stared at the table, holding his head in his hands, while Nezumi watched him.  
The success of the bakery and the extra profits were uplifting, but the looming feeling of absolute silence crept through Shion's head, and as it did, he could physically feel the happiness he felt earlier sink away from him.  
His depression had gone dormant and he maintained a sense of normalcy through the week, but now it was coming back.  
It always came back like this and each time it did it was as though Shion was reaching for air but slowly being dragged under water.  
Feelings he intentionally tried to smother were returning faster than he could process them and Shion froze, almost stuck in his head when Nezumi broke the silence.  
"I'll come back to you. I promise,"  
The words stayed in the air before echoing through Shion's mind. Shion slowly looked up.  
Shion had looked exhausted and as soon as Nezumi scanned his face, he knew the second he walked from the door, he'd instantly regret it.  
He already regretted everything and being with Shion so closely, he noticed that he had always felt consistently guilty for choices he made as a teenager.  
Obviously Shion wasn't going to take it well. Nezumi knew he couldn't blame Shion at all for how he handled this information.  
Nezumi wondered how long his past mistakes would weigh him down and for a brief minute, he wondered if anything he did for Shion could ever be enough.  
Nezumi noticed Shion's expression as his face became stoic and he frowned.  
Nezumi leaned forward, until his and Shion's face were mere inches apart.  
Shion's tired eyes met his gaze.  
"I promise I'll come back to you. I just need to get my priorities at home in order,"  
Nezumi's voice was low and soft.  
Shion nodded. He looked back down at the table and kept his eyes there.  
He didn't want to look at Nezumi because he didn't want to see him leave.  
If this departure really was permanent and Nezumi's promise was empty, could this bakery, by itself, be enough?  
Would life really have meaning if all he'd know, every time the sun set, was silence?  
Nezumi stood up.  
Obviously he was running out of time; the sun was setting and as it dipped below the horizon, the sky illuminated through the drapes, a bright orange and pink.  
Nezumi had squeezed Shion's hand before unlocking the front door.  
"I WILL be back," he reassured. His voice was frantic and Shion could hear how worried he was.  
Shion looked up, one last time, to reassure Nezumi that it would be okay. Even if Nezumi abandoned him, he'd have to make this okay. He'd have to make it okay for his mother.  
Even if Nezumi disappeared and the silence became loud again, it had to be okay.  
Nezumi walked through the door.  
As he did, he shut the door behind him.  
Standing outside, Nezumi had to catch his breath. Simple things were dragged out and something that should have been casual felt unbearable.  
Looking towards the west end, Nezumi thought about how he'd have to arrange his priorities. He knew he'd have to get things accomplished sooner than later because now, not only was he worried about Shion, but he also had the burden of guilt on him.  
To an extent he felt like it was unfair, if after thousands of dollars and a week full of unpaid labor, Shion still couldn't completely trust him again.  
As Nezumi walked away from the bakery, Shion felt like all of the happiness he had accumulated through the week had gone with him and he sat in silence, trying to piece himself together again long enough to make it upstairs.  
Like the two other times in his life when he need him the most, Nezumi had once again appeared and disappeared and the moment had come so soon that it was almost easy to feel as though their meeting was imaginary.  
Shion tried to focus on something that resembled present day; the paint on the walls, the sound of his busy dishwasher. Something that signified that this week actually happened and that it wasn't just a delusion.  
Something to hold on to, to look at and to remember that regardless of how this turns out, they still had this reunion and it still meant something.  
Beneath the ceiling, Shion began to feel small.  
His body began to feel cold and he found it difficult to move.  
To Shion, it didn't matter how painful the silence was or how frustrating it felt reaching out and touching nothing.   
To speak and hear nothing. To sit in silence day in and day out after everyone leaves and there had been and will always be nothing.  
Shion had a hard time living this way these days.  
He couldn't keep himself together anymore and as he got older, being able to stay calm and composed became more and more difficult.  
Shion sat very still.  
Even moving his head took effort and he forced himself to break his stillness to look at a nearby clock.  
It had been 30 minutes after Nezumi's departure before Shion would go back upstairs to his apartment.  
Shion's walk up the stairs was slow and his hands gripped the guard rail. He'd pause every few steps and just stare at the darkness.  
As soon as he opened the door, Shion looked at his empty apartment and as he took in how hollow it looked, his chest felt pain as he began to cry.  
The tears began to slide down his cheeks and as he buried his face in his hands, he could feel them drip through his fingers.  
His exhaustion came back and Shion sat on the floor with his door swung open, crying.  
There were so many things he still couldn't get used to. There were so many people he desperately missed.  
There was so much through the week that he let himself feel comfortable with and none of it mattered because the end result would always be the same.  
It was so quiet being here alone. It was always this quiet and indefinitely, it would always be this quiet.  
Shion pulled himself up as he wiped his eyes and he covered his mouth, choking back a sob.  
Shion shut and locked his door and he stood in place as his anxiety took over.  
Had his apartment light always been this bright and had those walls always been so far away?  
The silence was starting to feel louder and louder.  
Shion forced himself to throw his keys to the floor just to hear something.  
It was official.  
He was alone again.  
-

The walk back to the west end was tedious.  
The sun had set below the horizon and as it did, it took the warmth with it.  
As the wind blew, Nezumi crossed his arms in his jacket, staring forward to see the trailer homes.  
Though his vision had gotten worse, he could still make out the shapes of certain land marks and as he approached the gravel road, he knew exactly where to go.  
That's when something unusual had happened.  
Nezumi stopped walking. He looked at his feet and stood completely still for a moment.  
Why had the ground started to vibrate?  
Nezumi looked around to see if someone was working on construction or repairing a car.  
Nobody was outside this evening.  
Staying alert, Nezumi slowly started to walk forward again, trying to convince himself that he was overthinking.  
That's when he felt the ground vibrate again.  
Then there was a boom in the distance, sounding almost like a firework in the sky.  
Nezumi quickly looked forward, holding his breath.  
On the horizon, several miles away, black smoke began to fill the sky and as it expanded, the ground felt like it was vibrating again and again.  
Nezumi took a step back as he tried to assess what he was seeing.  
This could be construction; the west end was full of abandoned buildings that needed to be renovated. Surely, several of them had irreparable damage from decades of neglect.  
This could be what that was;  
Nezumi heard another boom and his breath was now caught in his throat.  
The illuminating glare from red and blue lights flashed from far away, lighting up the smoke in the sky as their sirens wailed.  
That's when people began to scream and Nezumi could hear it from where he was standing.  
He didn't know what was happening or if he should be concerned, but from the pit of his stomach, he felt terrified.  
Nezumi began to run back from the direction he came and visions of fire and tanks filled his mind.  
He tried not to think about it. Now wasn't the time. He had to focus. This was probably nothing.  
As Nezumi ran, he heard the sound of truck engines getting louder and as soon as he saw headlights, he ducked beside a car.  
The car was beside a trailer home and it was parked in a dirt paved driveway.   
Because it was now night time, the shadows from the car easily hid Nezumi in his dark clothes.  
His eyes widened in disbelief as he watched the vans drive by.  
Several police vans were driving in the direction of the noise and as they passed, Nezumi noticed a big grey box on the roof.  
It was a long range acoustic device.

His recognized it from before and as they disappeared in the distance, Nezumi watched their tail lights as the ground rumbled and more booming noises could be heard.  
Even if he knew he'd be throwing away what little self sufficiency he'd cultivated, Nezumi refused to take another step further.

He couldn't return right now.  
He had to go back to Shion.

-

Shion stared at his ceiling.  
He wasn't sure how late it was but his eyes felt heavy and he couldn't sleep.  
He had finished crying some time ago and now he felt as though he couldn't physically cry anymore. His eyes were sore and his cheeks felt cold as the last of his tears stuck to his face.  
His body felt hungry but he didn't have the strength to even stand up, let alone cook an entire meal.   
Shion knew he had to do something to prepare for the next morning, though, and as he thought about waking up and opening the bakery, he wished he could just stop time and sleep for several days.  
To be alone and to sort through his depression on his own time seemed like a dream.  
To sleep it off and hopefully, find a way to push it back down so he could ignore it again.

That's when Shion could hear something from downstairs.

Shion sat up and as he did, his exhaustion got worse.  
He wanted to believe it was Nezumi but he just wasn't sure.   
He didn't want to get his own hopes up, but the banging on his glass doors got louder and more frequent.

Shion, now concerned, ran downstairs.

Somehow his fear had given him energy and although his body felt weak, he found himself unlocking and pushing open his glass bakery door. 

Shion squinted his eyes in the dark. It was Nezumi.

Something was wrong.

Nezumi pushed Shion further inside as shut the door behind him, locking it.

They stared at each other in silence as Nezumi put his hand on his forehead. Even forming the words to speak after what he had seen seemed like a chore.

Nezumi asked "Shion, do you have cable?"

Shion pointed towards the staircase in the back before asking "why?"

Without saying a word, Nezumi quickly ran upstairs and Shion followed, feeling mixed emotions.

On one hand, his depression melted away and he began to feel happy to see Nezumi again; to know that he was safe and that he was real. He was here.

On the other hand, the fact that Nezumi had come back so soon was alarming.

Nezumi opened Shion's apartment door and didn't even bother taking off his boots as he made his way across the carpet, to Shion's couch.

Shion locked his apartment door as Nezumi flipped through the channels before stopping on the local news coverage, watching intently.

Nezumi leaned forward as sweat began to form on his face.  
He clasped his hands together and brought them to his mouth as he anticipated an answer.

Shion didn't think he was breathing.

A woman's voice spoke up. Shion looked at the TV as a reporter in a grey suit pointed behind her, to the fire, and said   
"Do not travel west of the city,"

The camera had panned towards buildings set on fire and police cars wailing.

"All roads and bus routes will be blocked temporarily. I can't disclose any more information to you at this time. Stay clear of the west block," she warned.

Nezumi leaned back on Shion's couch, staring in disbelief. 

The reporter was too vague for his comfort and just hours earlier, he had felt like Shion was being too melodramatic for even considering these type of things as realistic possibilities anymore.

As the news continued to play and the stories shifted to nonsense, Nezumi found himself thinking about the fire and the dead bodies again.

After pouring in so much money and creating so much growth, and after every single step the city of No.6 had taken to rebuild and repair the west end, could it be true that the genocides were happening again?

Could it be true that the repairs and the holidays were just tactics used by the corrupt politicians to hide a more sinister plot,

or that Nezumi had gotten so used to peace that he had forgotten the obvious signs of danger?

He sat in silence, stunned by what he had seen and stunned by his lack of answers.

There was no plausible reason for a police van to carry a long range acoustic device in this day and age.

There was no plausible reason for the ground to rumble as it did or for construction, if that even was the result of a demolition, to be happening this late in the evening.

He questioned if he had just gotten too comfortable with No.6.


	8. Wake Up Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nezumi questions the city again.
> 
> A familiar face appears.

Disclaimer: I don't own No.6 or the chapter title. Once again the chapter title is an AFI song.  
-  
As expected, the night was long and neither Shion nor Nezumi slept.  
Nezumi had pulled out Shion's laptop and scoured the internet for answers as to why there was such a commotion on the west block.  
Somehow, even through social media and search engines, there were no direct answers.  
It was almost as if the information were being deleted in real time, if it even existed at all.  
As the sun rose and the sky became a light blue, Shion's alarm had gone off and he lifted his head from the arm of his couch.  
He had dozed off some time ago but soon the piercing sound of his alarm clock jolted him awake and Shion looked up at Nezumi, who was still at his desk.  
It was time to get dressed and go to work.  
"Are you staying here today?" Shion asked. The light blue glow from his laptop illuminated Nezumi's face and he strummed his fingers against the desk before looking up at Shion.  
"Yes,"  
His voice was calm, composed, and quiet.  
Shion walked closer to Nezumi and he leaned over to look at the computer screen.  
Nezumi was reading an article about the laws put into place to protect the west end.  
After the collapse of the wall seperating the west end from the city, to no surprise, countless news articles, think pieces, and educational essays appeared, detailing the historical laws that were passed rectifying the crimes against humanity that No.6 commited.  
Through the night, Nezumi had learned that the city of No.6 now considered the west end an extension of itself.   
That the laws of No.6 were now being enforced far beyond it's borders, and that's why it was important to reconstruct the towns and bring order to the people.  
The manufacturing warehouses and cheap homes were built to relinquish the markets and the streetwork.   
Places like Rikiga's business and Inukashi's hotel were immeditely put out of business because under No.6's laws, they failed to adhere to certain guide lines that would make them suitable for work.  
Which is why, to a point, the reconstruction shaped the west end as the lower class extension of No.6.  
Regardless of how much the people made, and the value of their property, the west end was slowly becoming similar to No.6 and even if their wages and funding weren't up to Shion's standards, they were slowly assimilating into the city.  
It was now required that the people of the west block carry an identity card and in time, each of them would be assigned a social security number with a microchip in their skin.  
Nezumi had at first, dismissed the microchip as science fiction propaganda, but despite his best efforts, he couldn't find any articles or evidence to refute this information.  
The people in the city of No.6 didn't even have microchips.  
Something about this information struck him as odd because although the information was so brazenly presented to him with the pages associated with the west end, nothing on any of No.6's official websites mentioned anything about their own residents sharing this law.  
They had security bracelets and though the laws had become relaxed and things that were once banned were now accepted, Nezumi started to feel more suspicous about the differences between the west end and the city.  
He immediately felt like an idiot for even considering that the past could stay in the past. After his entire spiel about trusting the future, it was hard not to look back on those conversations and cringe.  
If he wasn't so tired, he swore he could have slapped himself.   
"So another genocide would be legally impossible," Shion said quietly. He didn't want to pile onto Nezumi's bad mood, so he kept his words brief, choosing to focus on the one positive thing that came to mind.  
Nezumi leaned back in his chair, stretching his fingers.   
"It seems so. I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, but I think something else is going on,"  
"I've never even heard of anyone being microchipped," Shion said quietly.  
He glanced over at his clock to make sure he wasn't spending too much time on this.  
The time was 4:43 am.  
He still had time to talk.  
"What do you think is happening?" Shion asked. Nezumi didn't have an answer.  
So far, all they had to go off of was the fact that the residents of the west end would soon be microchipped.  
Even then, it wasn't a direct confirmation of fascism and it wasn't direct evidence that what happened last night was from the city with ill intent.  
All of these theories were just cultivated by two delirious brains trying to rationalize a 10 minute news segment and Nezumi's experience seeing something happen from afar.  
Shion brushed his hand against Nezumi's shoulder before leaving to put his work clothes on.   
Nezumi leaned into it as he watched Shion walk away.   
Shion would have to get downstairs soon to prepare his bakery for the day ahead.  
His depression from the night before was dormant again, as it always was in the morning, and all Shion wanted to focus on was preserving his job, maintaining a relationship with his customers, and keeping his food at the highest possible quality he could make it.  
He thought about the night before and as he reached for his work shirt, mentally scolded himself for being so dramatic.   
As he put on his pants, he thought about how unreasonable his moods were and how, even if they felt serious in the moment, it was always humiliating the day after. Especially now that Nezumi, as he said he would, returned,  
but now they had more serious issues to deal with.  
He'd have to think about this situation with the west end after the morning rush. Then, hopefully, by noon, both he and Nezumi could find some clarity.  
Nezumi had shut the laptop and swivelled the computer chair to face Shion's direction.  
Shion had opened his bedroom door as he stepped through it wearing a white button down shirt tucked into black pants with an off white apron.   
Shion tied the apron from behind as he walked to his front door and grabbed his shoes.  
As he put them on, Shion asked "Are you going to be okay?"  
Nezumi thought for a moment.  
All things considered he wasn't entirely sure how to answer.  
"I'm don't know," Nezumi said, yawning.  
He stood up and cracked his back.  
"We'll just have to wait and see,"  
-  
Time passed and thankfully, the bakery steadily kept it's sales.  
It's popularity from social media had gained it some attention and after the renovation, Shion had attempted to market it as both a bakery and a cafe.  
Because the city of No.6 was overrun with various food franchises, something about Karan's small bakery had gained it quite a few customers.   
Only time would tell if they maintained their loyalty, but for today, they were here and for right now, his orders were plenty.  
Work had kept Shion from giving in to his exhaustion and soon his weariness wore off, making way for a burst of energy he didn't know he was capable of.  
People had come in for breakfast and as they did, Shion heard bits and pieces of their conversations.   
He was handing out boxes and bags of donuts, eclairs, and bagels and as people came, paid for their orders, and left, it became easier to eavesdrop on people's conversations from the back of his bakery as well.  
An elderly woman with a beige sweater had come in for an order of donuts. She was talking with a man in a dark blue sweatshirt, presumably her adult son, and from what Shion had gathered, what happened on the west block was a terrorist attack.  
Authorities had caught the man and taken him into custody. The news hadn't released the information sooner than this morning because the man responsible was being apprehended and identified.  
Shion put a fresh pair of plastic gloves on his hand before decorating a batch of donuts with chocolate icing.  
As he reached for a container of multi colored sprinkles, he wondered if this was anything like Nezumi's situation from their childhood.  
It could still be entirely possible that people were being misled to provoke fear.  
Shion carefully placed the donuts in a medium sized box and he was careful to put a small sheet of baking paper between the sprinkled and glazed donuts.  
He thought about Nezumi's reassurance from last week and couldn't figure out what to believe in; would it be irrational to hear a story like that and question it?  
Nezumi insisted that everything was good again. That people were given more opportunities and that in this day and age, things were easier.  
Even his conquest to find conflicting information last night came out fruitless. There was nothing, beside the information on the microchips to confirm any of Shion's fears.  
He wondered if he was being delusional again because of his depression.  
As Shion gave the box of donuts to an elderly woman, she swiped her card on his pin pad and punched in her pin number.  
As if he were a robot programmed to work in a certain routine, Shion proceeded to engage in small talk, gave the woman her reciept, and wished her and her son a good morning.   
If he stood still long enough to entertain his imagination anymore, he'd fall behind.  
-  
Nezumi had finally come downstairs some time after 4 pm.  
The bakery had slowed down and now Shion was setting up premade orders for customers who were arriving soon.  
Shion's eyes met Nezumi's as Nezumi stepped to the other side of the counter.  
He was facing Shion from in front of the register.  
"The news called it a terrorist attack," Nezumi exclaimed. His voice was serious and annoyed and both of his palms were flat on the front counter.  
Shion was chopping strawberries on a cutting board as he asked "Did they say anything else about it? Who did it?"  
"That's the funny part," Nezumi said sarcastically, leaning forward.  
"Why would Rikiga bomb a building?"  
Shion stopped cutting.  
He was so surprised, he almost dropped his knife on the floor.   
Glad that he didn't, he held the knife in place as he stood still.  
"Rikiga?" He asked. Shion was shocked.  
Nezumi unfolded a sheet of paper from his back pocket and he flattened it with his hand, smoothing the creases on the flat surface of the counter.  
Shion frantically picked up the paper.  
Nezumi had printed a news article with information on the attack, and in the article, there was a mug shot of a now aged and grey Rikiga.  
His eyes were sunken in, the bags under his eyes were dark, and Rikiga looked as though he had gained weight.   
His once brown hair was now speckled with grey and he had considerably more wrinkles on his forehead and under his eyes than before.  
Shion shook his head in disbelief.  
"I don't think Rikiga would do something this reckless," he said.  
Nezumi shrugged. "I agree. I haven't talked to him since we were teenagers but I know that this doesn't make any sense,"  
Shion peeled his plastic gloves from his hand before crumpling them and throwing them away. They had been tainted and he still had work to do.  
He pulled another pair from a small blue box beside his display case.  
"There aren't any details as to what could have motivated this," Shion said, glancing back at the paper on his counter. He had resumed chopping his strawberries.  
That's when Nezumi picked the paper up, folding it back into a small square.  
"If Rikiga was bombing a building, why would they need a long range acoustic device to stop him?"  
Shion carefully placed the chopped strawberries on a small round cake with white whipped frosting. He slowly turned the cake on a rotating plate.  
"It doesn't make any sense," he said quietly. He tried to maintain concentration so he could decorate this cake the way the customer anticipated, but he was feeling much more reactionary.  
That's when the door bell chimed and a customer walked in.  
Shion and Nezumi looked over to see who it was.  
A woman with tan skin and a dark messy bun walked through the door.  
She was thin, relatively short in height, and wearing a thick oversized grey sweatshirt with black leggings. Her hair looked as though she had just thrown it into a bun and several stray strands were loose, framing her angular face.  
Her light tennis shoes were worn and stained with dirt, and although she looked familiar neither Shion nor Nezumi could remember who this person's name.  
Shion glanced past the woman through the glass doors.  
A pale young boy with light brown hair was holding the leashes of four large dogs.  
The dogs were well behaved, sitting calmly, and the boy was staring through the glass doors at the woman.  
He was a child, but he was much older than a toddler.   
Nezumi squinted his eyes, trying to remember if he knew the boy.  
The woman put her hands on her hips and chuckled.  
"I had a feeling that I'd find you both here. I thought I was going crazy just thinking about it!"  
Shion's eyes widened in shock. As if the news about Rikiga wasn't outlandish enough, he was now standing face to face with a completely different Inukashi.  
Inukashi smiled at him and when she looked to Nezumi, her expression faded and she looked back at Shion.  
Her expression softened as she examined his dyed brown hair and she took in a breath.  
"I stumbled across advertisements for your bakery online. If I knew you were just right here I would have visited you sooner,"  
Shion smiled, almost in disbelief. He wanted, so badly, to hug Inukashi, but he dismissed the idea instantly.  
Inukashi was never the type of person to hug anyone and Inukashi had very strict boundaries when it came to physical consent.   
Without trying to, Shion instantly remembered the evening in the hotel when he and Nezumi watched as Inukashi was greeted by a disgusting old man.  
He would always be enraged by that and he glanced at Nezumi, remembering how angry he was that Nezumi had held him back. He knew that if he kept thinking about it, it would ruin his mood.  
So Shion stayed at a distance as he quickly covered his cake with a medium sized glossy white box before taking his gloves off and coming around the front counter.  
Inukashi, much like Nezumi, had aged and the androgynous youthfulness of her face had become more matured and more feminine in time.  
For reasons he hadn't understood yet, she seemed to embrace being a woman and although her clothes were still very modest, she finally seemed comfortable in her own skin.  
Her son also looked healthy.  
Inukashi noticed Shion's stare and said " I raised him all by myself. He's made me very proud,"  
Shion smiled at the boy and the boy held a blank expression as he waved back. Shion put his hand down and his smile went away.  
"He's not really comfortable with strangers. I've told him about you but he doesn't know who you are yet," Inukashi said, crossing her arms. "He just knows that a man named Shion had saved his life and brought him to me,"  
Shion thought about the day the correctional facility had fallen and he furrowed his brows.  
Nezumi looked genuinely concerned and that's when he noticed Inukashi staring at him from the corner of his eye.  
"I'm surprised you're even here with Shion," she said. Her voice was sharp and loud.   
" I thought you had just used us for your revenge plan and left,"  
Nezumi winced and Shion, who had seen this, was visibly annoyed.  
"I don't blame you for saying that. I'm not going to say I don't deserve it,"  
Nezumi had shaken Shion's shoulder to get him to snap out of his mood. Shion met his eyes and Nezumi tried to silently reassure him that he was fine.  
That was when Nezumi reached back into his pocket to take out the same sheet of paper from before.  
As the doorbell chimed a woman walked through the door and she approached Shion at the counter.  
Shion put his gloves back on as he spoke with the woman, leaving Nezumi and Inukashi to talk among themselves.  
Inukashi looked back at her son and she started to feel guilty about standing inside the bakery for so long.  
Nezumi noticed this and he tried to be quick.  
"You looked up Shion to talk about this, right?" Nezumi asked. He nodded towards the piece of paper in his hands and his voice was low to preserve the privacy between he and Inukashi.  
Inukashi shook her head.  
"I actually just found that out earlier today on our way here. I saw the page for Shion's bakery while looking for resturaunts for Mieko,"  
"Mieko?" Nezumi looked towards the glass door again. Wasn't that a girl's name?  
A woman holding a glossy white box walked through it and Nezumi could see the boy Inukashi was referring to more clearly. Mieko was definitely a boy, indeed.  
He was sitting on the sidewalk beside his four dogs, looking in.  
Inukashi nervously stepped towards the door as she gestured to her son that she'd be out soon.  
She looked back at Nezumi.  
"His name is Mieko, I named him. It's his birthday soon and I wanted to give him a cake this year. I can afford extra things now so this was my priority today,"  
Inukashi grabbed the end of the paper to get a better look at it. Nezumi let go and she adjusted it in her hands to read it.  
"So Rikiga was the terrorist. That seems really weird to me," she said.  
"It didn't make sense to me either. I always pegged him for a pervert but not a terrorist,"  
Inukashi gave the paper back to Nezumi.  
"As weird as that is, we never really know people," she said. Her voice trailed off as she took one last look at Nezumi.  
It was surreal standing here, in this little building with Nezumi and Shion, as if everything they had gone through was a dream.  
Reality seemed to have sunken in because Inukashi's demeanor became a little more somber. She sighed.  
"You're taking care of Shion now, right?" She asked. Nezumi hesitantly nodded.  
"you could say that," he said.  
Inukashi's eyes trailed away as she watched another customer leave through the door and she looked back at the counter to see Shion lifting an empty tray from his display case.  
She turned to focus on Nezumi again.  
"We need to talk about this later. My son's been outside for too long.  
Do you have a phone number?"  
Nezumi shook his head before Inukashi walked to the counter.   
She said "I'll just get one from Shion," before making her order.  
Nezumi watched them talk and he looked back at his printed news article with Rikiga's face on it.  
He blocked out a lot of his past because when he thought about it too much it weighed him down.  
Seeing Inukashi again today had reminded him that he put her in the position to be touched by a perverted old man and he had willfully used her as bait to gain information.  
He wasn't even sure of how old she was back then but undoubtedly, she had to have been younger than Shion.  
Even if she had agreed to help him, he knew he had pressured her into it, and that stuck with him, even today, because putting her in that position, even if it was useful, was sick.  
He knew Inukashi had thought about that and he knew that it affected her because for the longest time, before that night, she had expressed her fears. That was one of them and Nezumi knew it.  
The fact that Inukashi not only overcame that, but she had adjusted and found enough peace within herself to raise a child, was incredible.  
Nezumi watched as Inukashi approached him. She was preparing to leave.  
Even in her baggy sweatshirt and worn out shoes, she held confidence, and even though her hair was still long, it was now styled in a more feminine way.   
Inukashi felt safe again.  
Nezumi stopped Inukashi as she placed a reciept in her pocket.   
They were right by the door.  
"I owe you the biggest apology," he said quietly. His silver eyes met her brown eyes and she almost teared up.  
She knew exactly what he was referring to and she knew how much that one interaction between herself and that disgusting old man had shaped her perspective.  
For the longest time she couldn't even think about it, let alone speak life into it by remembering it out loud. It was too painful and too dehumanizing, even if their interaction was brief.  
Inukashi stepped back, looking down, before shaking her head. She clenched her fists.  
Shion was placing a sheet of baking paper onto another tray as he watched Inukashi and Nezumi from behind the display case.  
He listened in on what they were saying as he arranged another batch of quiche for dinner.  
"Don't make me think about it," Inukashi said. Though her voice was assertive, it nearly cracked.  
Shion frowned as he watched Inukashi's shoulders slump.  
She couldn't meet Nezumi's eyes.  
"We'll all meet up again very soon. Let's think about that instead,"

That was when Inukashi had walked through the door. Her dogs had stood and followed her as she and her son left.  
Nezumi watched them leave before looking back at Shion.  
Shion had gone back to arranging his display case and though there were no customers in the bakery right now, it was just a matter of time until the 6 o'clock dinner rush began.  
Nezumi sat at a nearby cafe table and stared through the glass windows of the bakery.  
It seemed like one thing after another was happening and that somehow, the past Nezumi was ashamed of was coming back again. He had to face it whether he liked it or not.  
He had to remember things he blocked out and he had to make up for them by being more considerate today.  
He was having to hold himself accountable for the things he had done and the people he had hurt and as if his guilt with Shion wasn't enough, he also had to face his guilt with Inukashi.  
Something he hadn't thought much about within the past decade.  
Nezumi sat in silence and wondered if it really would be possible for their history to repeat itself.


	9. Cuts You Up.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nezumi and Shion are still skeptical of the city. Shion remembers what the city was capable of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, sorry I haven't updated this story in a few months. I think about it a lot but I've been really busy.

Disclaimer: I don't own No.6 or the Peter Murphy song used as my chapter titles.

Since the Rikiga incident, a considerable amount of time had passed.

Days became repetitive as Nezumi began working with Shion and as they ended each week, it seemed as though all interest in this incident ended just as quickly as it began.

It stopped being a topic for small talk and slowly fading into irrelevance as the season changed and the weather became cool.

Despite their best efforts, all Shion and Nezumi had learned was that Rikiga had some previous motives to cause an attack and that now he was in police custody.

As the story ran it's course, Nezumi had skimmed every single news segment for details only to come out just as confused as he was the day he had found out.

There were never any public explanations for how they captured Rikiga or why the weapons they had deployed to the West End were necessary.

Only brief reminders here and there that A happened, causing B to go into affect, and that's how the West End and No.6 reached C.

"So... we can't go back to the West End?" Shion asked. He furrowed his brow in confusion before rubbing his forehead. The stress felt nauseating.  
As Shion exhaled, a voice on his cellphone began to speak.

The phone was on speaker and Inukashi was on the other line.

"No, and I don't know what they're planning," she said. She had tried to remain calm but fear was making her anxious. She took in a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before she exhaled.  
"I need to get Meiko to No.6," She said. Shion nodded in agreement as he listened to her only to stop and wince once he remembered she couldn't see his gestures.  
Regardless, Inukashi continued.  
"This is too vague for me. I don't want things to end how they did before!"  
Suddenly, the pit of Shion's stomach felt queasy and he froze for a minute, remembering the past.  
Through the years the worst parts of his life became white foggy blurs and although the pain resonated from it, he very seldom found the courage to think about the details.  
He tried to block out as much as he could, but the stench from the dead bodies he climbed came back to him, and as his nausea increased, the stress made him feel like he could throw up.  
Shion lurched forward holding his mouth. Nezumi quickly made his way to him before rubbing Shion's upper back.  
Shion snapped his eyes shut and shook his head as he tried not to think about the texture or the smell of what he had to climb to survive.  
The fact that he later realized he was saved by Safu's grandmother's knitting needle always, always tore him to shreds.  
This was never an easy thing for him to confront and any time he thought about it, he always felt disgusted and he always felt so angry.  
He felt himself slowly dissociating and willed himself to focus on his phone.  
Inukashi needed them to be present. She needed them to listen to her concerns and to help her if need be.

This was present day. This phone is unique to this time period and he is in an apartment. What happened, happened, and it's over. Shion reminded himself that he couldn't change his past and that again and again, he needed to stay calm and he couldn't waste anymore of his time grieving for something he couldn't turn back time and erase.  
Inukashi's voice sounded like static, as though in this state, Shion were underwater, and though she was talking, he couldn't figure out what she was saying. He stopped listening several minutes ago and he couldn't stop enough to make himself listen now.  
Nothing registered in his mind but being here was proof enough that he would be okay. That's all he could focus on right now.

He felt cold from the inside and he began to go numb. The emptiness in him felt inescapable but he stayed determined to persevere.  
Today would be a good day and everything would be okay.  
Probably.

"Do you know if there are any exceptions for travel?" Nezumi asked. Shion suddenly glanced over at Nezumi as Nezumi spoke to Inukashi.  
His short black hair and pale skin made him look beautiful and Shion found it easier to calm down when he realized Nezumi's hand was on his back.

He wasn't sure when, because for the past few minutes, he couldn't focus, but somehow Nezumi ended up with Shion's cellphone in his hands.

Nezumi held Shion closer to him as he suddenly moved to put his arm around Shion's shoulders.

Nezumi recognized the reaction from Shion and though he didn't understand how Shion got that way, he held tremendous amounts of empathy for him.

Whatever Shion was thinking about, it must have been terrible. Which would be another good reason to hate No.6, had Nezumi the mental capacity or the energy to spend another decade doing so.

Inukashi became quiet on the other line. Though she couldn't see Shion in person, she noticed the conversation became almost entirely silent and she felt like there was a rift in their discussion today.  
She wasn't sure why but something had changed. 

"I'm not sure," she said hesitantly, "All I know is that everyone is trying to make this out to be a casual thing. I keep hearing that No.6 is just trying to be careful after the bombing but I just don't know,"  
"It's hard to trust it," Nezumi said sternly. He could feel the anger from his youth coming back, but for his own sake he kept it in check. They still didn't have definitive proof that any of this was a conspiracy yet. It was all just suspicion and speculation.

So Nezumi paused for a moment and thought about what they could do to find a solution. Then he remembered walking through downtown No.6 some time ago.

If the city really had nothing to hide, then surely the immigration offices could come up with a plausible reason to deny crossing districts.

"We can find information on travel for you," Nezumi suggested, somewhat lost in thought. "Surely there are exceptions,"

Something could be said about the No.6's modern day leniency. 

No.6 used to have a very strict border policy but since the fall of the wall, things had gotten more relaxed. He noticed that over time, their policies had become more people oriented to save face from the massive blister on their city's history.

Surely there was a way he could move Inukashi and Meiko to No.6 for their safety.

Regardless of what they had to do or IF this was all an ill informed overreaction, Nezumi knew that they could figure this out. They figured out the impossible before their brains were even fully developed and these circumstances probably weren't even as dire. They had so much less to lose.

The chance that the laws could still revert back to how they used to be wasn't completely dismissed but regardless, there's no way that this time around, they'd be as bold.

It would be too obvious and therefore, in this newly reformed, democratic society,  
preventable.

So for the sake of trying, Nezumi had prepared to go with Shion to the immigration office today.  
He finished the conversation with Inukashi, gathered her personal information just in case he'd need it, and as soon as he wrote down everything he needed, he took the small sheet of paper and folded it.

As he put it in his pocket, Shion stood up and wiped his eyes.  
"Do you want to stay here?" Nezumi asked.  
Shion shook his head, refusing to meet Nezumi's eyes.

A minute passed before Shion could speak and when he finally did, he cleared his throat.  
His voice was low, quiet, and broken.

"I don't want to be alone today,"

Nezumi watched as Shion walked to his bathroom. He thought about his teen years and how he had to take time to process the fires and the hunting.

Having to acknowledge something that painful and then work through it was one of the most difficult things Nezumi had ever had to do. It was so disgustingly clear that their time together in their youth, and the consequences that followed, shaped Shion.

If they hadn't gotten away with the city's destruction to begin with, he'd suggest that Shion go to therapy. But because of the nature of his circumstances and how confidential their involvement was, opening up and being able to fully express what they had gone through was literally the difference between freedom and prison. Shion was in a position where, if days like today happen, and he remembers their last day together in detail,

he had almost no healthy avenues to express his anger and he had nothing he could use as a catharsis.

No family to rely on and though he enjoyed their work, all he had most days was just Nezumi.

Because of this, during their time together, Nezumi had balanced between feeling his own feelings and trying to take Shion's feelings when he could. Though the experience was turbulent and exhausting,

Nezumi always remembered how alone he used to be and the sentiment that he never wanted Shion to change could still be true today.

In that he really never wanted Shion to feel the hatred he's felt. To build his ego as Nezumi has and to exist entirely for revenge as he once did.

Now was their time to live a semi normal life if at all possible, and had Nezumi not left and had they not watched the news, he wasn't even sure if any of this would be relevant to their lives right now.

Nezumi watched Shion as he stood over his sink with the water running.

Shion washed his face, stared at his reflection in the mirror, and sighed a heavy sigh.  
Shion's eyes were puffy, his face was pale, his eyelids were red and his eyes looked dim.  
His hair was just a little bit lighter than yesterday, now looking dark honey blonde rather than light brown.  
Shion had thrown on an oversized black coat and one of his black scarves.  
Before they left through the door, he lifted his hood and kept his focus on the floor.

Without a doubt, it would always be devastating to Nezumi to see how one of the brightest lights could become so broken.  
As they walked down the stairs and through the empty bakery,  
Shion exhaled and leaned his weight on to Nezumi's shoulder, and instinctively, without even giving it a second thought, Nezumi put his arm around Shion's shoulders and pulled him closer to him.  
They had to keep walking for Inukashi's sake and if they didn't at least try to get an answer for their curiosity, they would have wasted so much energy speculating for nothing.

Nezumi was determined to solve this predicament, even if the answer proved his assumptions wrong.

-  
The immigration office, much like the rest of No.6, was very modern, minimalistic, and grey.  
From the outside, the building was large, reflective, and cool tinted as the shade of glass resembled an almost greenish blue.  
The landscaping surrounding the building was an unrealistic green for this season and despite the course of nature, somehow the perfectly trimmed trees kept all of their little leaves in tact.  
People were walking through the street, passing by and as they did, Nezumi watched their umbrellas sway in the mist. 

In no time at all, Nezumi and Shion made their way to the large glass doors in the entryway.

The foyer smelled of fresh paper and they scuffed their shoes on the large rubber rain mat, attempting to dry their feet to keep from slipping on the tile floors.  
Soon, Nezumi pushed open a second glass door, and as he did, the crisp, cold air from the inside sent a shiver down his spine.  
His black sweatshirt was wet and now he was freezing.  
Nezumi looked behind him to see how Shion was faring.  
Shion had taken off his hood and pat his hair down to look more presentable.  
His eyes were still red around the sockets but they were no longer glossy and pink.  
Instead, his gaze remained dim, and since they left the apartment, he remained quiet.  
Nezumi didn't have time to think about this anymore though because he was completely surprised by a nearby security guard.  
"May I help you?"  
Nezumi jumped but found himself smiling at the ridiculousness of it all as he greeted the security guard nervously.  
The man was tall, middle aged, and his uniform was very sharp and clean.  
Nezumi accidentally noticed a gun in his holster but pretended he didn't see anything as he switched expressions.  
Nezumi's smile became warm as his voice softened. He tried to seem as agreeable as possible, God only knows why.  
"We need to talk to someone about crossing districts,"  
The security guard's expression lightened up as he pointed past a waiting room to a large elevator across the corridor.  
"You'll need to go to the sixth floor to reach the immigration offices. They can give you all the information you need,"  
"Thank you," Nezumi said.  
The security officer smiled as Nezumi waved goodbye and they began to walk across the tile floor, completely focused on the elevators before them.

Nezumi shivered. He was apprehensive about expressing it but he wondered who in the right mind could keep an office building this cold this late in the year.  
As soon as the elevator light lit up, Nezumi tried to keep his composure as the doors opened, and fortunately for he and Shion, the elevator was completely empty today.  
As they stepped in, Shion watched as the doors closed before pressing the number 6 button.  
The doors closed and thankfully, as soon as they did, the elevator became much warmer.  
As they were lifted up, Nezumi kept his focus on the floor numbers.  
Each time they went up a floor, Nezumi anticipated on stopping or having the doors open again.  
To his surprise, they seemed to keep going without any interruptions. Was it always typical for No.6's city to be this sparse?  
A bell rung and the elevator jolted to a stop.

As soon as the doors opened, Nezumi and Shion stepped into a light olive green hallway.  
The lights were dim, the dark grey carpet was short and the bristles were very tight.  
As they looked around, there were several informative immigration posters, a directory, and several glass doors in the hallway, each room depicting another subsect of the immigration office.  
Unsure of where to go, Shion and Nezumi walked towards the directory until they saw a window labeled "Assistance".  
Shion approached the window.  
"Good afternoon," a middle aged woman said, greeting him from the other side of the window.  
Her uniform was dark and her clothes were neat.  
She had a full face of natural looking makeup and her hair was neatly tucked behind her ear, left to cascade over her shoulders without obstructing her view.  
She had turned away from her computer to look face Shion and have a proper conversation with him.  
"What can I do for you?" She asked.

Shion looked her in the eyes, trying his best to seem like he hadn't cried earlier today.

"I was looking for information pertaining to crossing districts. More specifically, the West End,"  
The woman's expression went from relatively cheerful to uncomfortable.  
She reached across her desk to a stack of papers resting in a divider.  
She slid one of the papers in the small space under the window and gave it to Shion directly.  
"Unfortunately our offices connected to the West End are out of service today. i can't give you anymore information about this other than what I have right here,"  
Shion lifted the paper and scanned the title.  
The page was full of information about what was still allowed, what was considered essential, what certain expectations and exceptions were and how someone could qualify to cross into No.6 right now.  
he didn't have time to take in the information because the woman began to read from her own copy of the paper.  
"This is all of the information regarding the West End and our temporary lock on travel between these districts.  
This protocol will only last seven business days and regular travel will commence soon after. These paragraphs detail the specific qualifications and exceptions available to both residents of No.6 and the West End, so this will tell you everything you need to know about whether or not you or anyone else can make exceptions for travel.  
If you meet the criteria listed in this paragraph right here, you can visit our website listed above and fill out a Special Case form to resume regular travel if need be,"  
The woman had taken a pen and lightly circled the fourth paragraph on the page and underlined the website in small print on the upper right hand corner.  
She slid her copied paper with her pen work under the window for Shion to keep as well and smiled at him as she did.  
Shion placed the new sheet over the first one and stacked them, making sure that they were even as they pressed together.  
He smiled politely at the woman.  
"Thank you very much. Do you have any information about why this is happening?"  
The woman shook her head.  
"your guess is as good as mine. I think they're doing repairs on the area that was bombed, but don't quote me on that,"  
Shion nodded. for a brief second, he felt foolish as though his delusions had caused an unnecessary uproar between him, Nezumi, and Inukashi, and for about two seconds, it was almost embarrassing that they had even come this far when an explanation like that made complete sense.  
Nezumi had placed his hand on Shion's shoulder and lightly pulled him away from the window.  
"Thank you for the information. You have a blessed day!" He said happily.  
Almost as though he resurrected Eve, Nezumi's voice had changed completely and his demeanor became so welcoming and friendly.  
It was out of character but once more, his charm had made him anything but intimidating or noticeably out of place.  
The lady behind the window smiled and waved goodbye to them as she turned towards her computer again, and in no time at all, Nezumi and Shion were back in the elevator, and this time they were going down.  
Shion skimmed the pages that the woman at the front desk had given him, and as he did, he found himself skeptical of his fears.  
It was hard not to second guess himself now that they actually had the paperwork in their hands.  
It felt so ridiculous that they were even on the phone with Inukashi earlier considering that the border would only be shut down for such a short amount of time.  
If something sinister were on the horizon, could that even be executed in such a small time frame?  
As Shion skimmed through the list of qualifications to make exceptions for travel, aside from people traveling for work or childcare, the criteria wasn't as difficult to meet as he'd previously assumed. What did this mean?  
He looked at Nezumi.  
The light on the elevator door dinged and read "2".  
"Do you think we're overreacting?" Shion asked.  
Nezumi, who's arms were crossed as he rubbed his upper arms peered over Shion's paperwork and he squinted his eyes as he reread the paragraph detailing what Inukashi would need to migrate to No.6 temporarily.  
"I don't know if we were," he said, his voice trailing off.  
The elevator came to a stop and doors opened to the waiting area again, once more greeting Nezumi with the ice cold air conditioning.  
He and Shion walked side by side as they each took a sheet of paper and skimmed through everything, both front and back.  
Nothing on this paper was incriminating or gave way to speculations about any long term repercussions for breaking the migration rules.  
It was the most bizarre thing.  
Nezumi knew what he had seen the other day and he knew it was suspicious that Rikiga of all people had been involved in any of it.  
Whatever was going on couldn't have been typical in the slightest.  
There had to be something more to this, but as he reread the list of travel exceptions, a part of him, like Shion, did wonder if this was just a one off crime and if Rikiga really had just lost it.  
Nezumi's thought process was once more broken by the same security guard from before.  
"Did you find everything you need?"  
Nezumi smiled again, shifting into "Eve" as he walked towards the doors.  
"Yes we did, thank you!" He pressed his hand on to Shion's shoulder and they politely smiled at the man before saying their goodbyes and walking through the large glass doors.  
As the door shut behind them in the foyer, Nezumi, who was now embracing the rise in temperature, sighed as he looked through the second set of doors in front of him.  
It was raining heavily outside.

Shion carefully folded the paper given to him and placed it in his coat. He looked up at Nezumi, then.

"Do you want to wear my coat?" He asked.  
His mood was wearing off and Shion was once again, stable.  
It was refreshing to see some of the light returning to his eyes, but Nezumi didn't want to entertain the idea of him freezing anyways.  
Nezumi shook his head. "Rain doesn't bother me," he said quietly.  
As Nezumi pushed open the door, they were greeted by cooler air.  
Not quite as cold as the waiting area, but cold nonetheless.  
Shion put his hood over his head and they walked across the grass.

During the walk home, neither Shion nor Nezumi felt like talking about anything.  
Shion had been in his head again, trying to regain some variation of stability.  
Nezumi, on the other hand, couldn't stop questioning his assumptions and whether or not they held any legitimate weight.  
He had been so sure just the other day that something sinister was happening, but after reading the paper given to him and taking the time to really dissect the words, he felt foolish again because on one hand, the explanation made sense.  
An area was bombed, the police did an investigation, and now they were doing repairs.  
Long Range Acoustic Devices were said to be used to derail hostage situations and so far, from what they could see, there were no indicators that anything suspicious was even happening.  
Instead, Inukashi was probably in her home with her son terrified, stressing herself sick over what Nezumi, to his own dismay, was beginning to reluctantly label "conspiracy theory".  
All because the man involved was Rikiga.

Nezumi and Shion approached the bakery entrance.  
As Shion dug in his pocket for the keys, he asked "Do you think anything is wrong with me?"  
Nezumi was taken aback. Somehow the question caught him off guard.  
They really were on two different wavelengths today.  
While it was clear to him that Shion was dealing with some kind of mental illness, Nezumi wanted to be honest without making Shion feel worse.  
He wasn't sure which direction to go so as Shion opened the door he replied "What do you mean?"  
They both stepped inside.  
As soon as his feet touched the wet rubber mat, Nezumi reached behind him and locked the door.  
He noticed his sleeves were dripping and as his hand left the door handles, small drops of rain water slid from them.  
Nezumi was drenched and his black sweatshirt was sticking to him.  
Shion felt guilt stirring in the pit of his stomach when he noticed how visibly wet Nezumi was, in contrast to himself, who was dry.  
He also thought about the way he reacted during their conversation with Inukashi earlier and questioned if he was just reactionary. His bad mood had lasted for nearly two hours afterwards.  
Is that a normal way to react to something like this?  
Was what they had gone through bad enough to incite this kind of issue between them?  
Nezumi handled himself so much better and Nezumi's life had been filled with various moments like that one, and still, here he was in present day, as confident and as strong as he had ever been.  
There were never moments of severe depression, numbness, or anger.  
Nezumi was a man who, despite the odds, grown up to be very well put together and in turn, very comforting to Shion.  
Shion thought about how sheltered he was in No.6 and tried to push away any feelings of self pity by swearing he didn't deserve to feel as strongly as he did.  
As they took off their shoes, Nezumi said "I think you're going through something that a lot of people have gone through. I don't think it negatively defines you,"  
Shion started to walk towards the staircase in the back.  
As he did, Nezumi followed and Shion said "I can't tell if any of my reactions make sense anymore,"  
Shion opened the apartment door and stepped inside.  
Nezumi followed, now concerned.  
"What do you mean?"  
Shion sat on his couch, which was against the wall closest to the door.  
As he did he exhaled and he rubbed his forehead, unsure of how to best articulate his thoughts.  
"Some days I'm more myself. I can feel like I used to feel and live or act normally...  
Then something gets under my skin and everything changes,"  
Nezumi walked over to Shion's room, opening the door.  
His sweatshirt was drenched and his body was cold.  
During the short period of time that they had spent together, they fell into old patterns like sharing and wearing each other's clothes.  
As Nezumi processed what Shion had told him, he peeled his wet clothes off of his body and looked for the same black sweater and grey sweatpants Shion had initially lent him during the first week of his stay.  
Any time his clothes were washing, he'd change into this specific outfit until they were done. For the past month, this became a routine for them, and had Nezumi not been too sidetracked to think about it, he could have recognized that they weren't too different from a married couple by now.  
Two minutes had passed.  
As Nezumi walked back from the room, he noticed Shion had been waiting, now sitting with his head leaning into his hand, and the other hand was tightly tucked close to him, resting on his waist.  
He was resting on the arm of the couch and by the expression on his face, definitely overthinking.  
Nezumi placed his wet clothes in the washing machine and went to Shion.  
"you're dealing with residual memories from the past. We've been talking about Rikiga and Inukashi lately. The last time we saw either of them was on that day,"  
Shion didn't look at Nezumi. Once again, screams from the people of the west district and the booming sounds from No.6's tanks filled his head.  
He felt like he was slowly sinking underwater but he couldn't move.  
Nezumi shook his shoulder.  
"Look at the coffee table right now." Nezumi demanded.  
Shion's eyes immediately locked on to his mother's coffee table.  
On this coffee table there were stacks of newspapers, a pen without a cap, a remote, and a few water droplets from when Nezumi had walked past it earlier.  
The coffee table was sleek, chestnut brown, and frayed around the corners from being used and worn for the last decade and a half.  
Under the light you could see the circles in which Shion had wiped it down last, and the light reflecting was a warm light, almost yellow toned, and it illuminated from the dining area.  
Shion didn't think about the screams or the tanks anymore.  
"You're going through something I used to go through," Nezumi said quietly.  
He wanted to reach out and touch Shion's shoulder but thought against it.  
Although they acted very much like a couple, gestures like this, especially right now, just didn't feel okay.  
He didn't think about it as he continued,  
"I used to feel that way any time I saw fire. Any time I had to light a fire to cook with or to boil my water, I thought about the way they had burned the villages and I thought about the family I never had,"  
Shion shook his head.  
He snapped his eyes shut and angrily cringed at himself.  
"I'm such an asshole," he said quietly, "Nezumi, I'm s-"  
"Don't be sorry!"  
Nezumi was annoyed.  
Shion, surprised, looked at Nezumi and sat up straight.  
Nezumi's voice was stern and his expression resembled a Nezumi that Shion used to know when they were younger.  
For a second Shion's heart skipped a beat and as quickly as it happened, it went away.  
Regardless, the comfort was still there.  
It was almost nostalgic to see such conviction and seriousness in Nezumi's features.  
"How we grew up and the differences we have don't immediately exclude you from having feelings! I don't have a monopoly on pain and to think like I should makes me a victim when I'm not a victim!"  
Shion winced. The guilt in his stomach became worse as he heard the words Nezumi was saying. Nezumi's expression changed to concern as Shion shook his head again.  
"I'm s-"  
"Our last day together was HELL. What you SAW was HELL. You had to fight for our lives and in one single day, your life was torn into several different directions. You'd be insane to come back from that happy!"  
Nezumi was now sitting beside Shion with his hands on his shoulders.  
Shion didn't want to look Nezumi in the eye because although Nezumi didn't intend on this, Shion's guilt was eating him alive and it was pretty hard for him to fully understand what Nezumi was trying to say.  
He repeat the words in his head again and again but the guilt didn't go away. Not even a little.  
Shion looked at Nezumi, his eyelids now half open because of his exhaustion, and Nezumi sighed, placing a hand on Shion's cheek.  
Nezumi's hand was slightly calloused and very warm. Leaning into his palm felt very natural and Shion anticipated that gestures like this would feel cinematic and romantic once they happened again. Since Nezumi's return, he was sure that eventually, they would.  
He was sure the whirlwind romance from their teen years would resurrect, or that once they interacted in this way again, it would be just as breathtaking as it was so long ago.  
But right now, it was far from that, which was probably better.  
Shion felt calm.  
"It's a human reaction to feel disgusted by having to fight for your life, watch your childhood friend die, and climb a mountain of dead bodies.  
It's a human reaction to still be angry about the genocide and the way they corralled us into a truck like cattle.  
Just because you had an easy life before that doesn't mean you should ridicule yourself for feeling pain,"  
Nezumi sat in silence as he held onto Shion and as he did, he glanced over at the clock across the room.  
It was barely even 6 pm.  
Nezumi moved to take his hand from Shion's face but Shion tugged at his sweater.  
Nezumi, startled, looked back at Shion.

"Do you think I changed for the worse?" Shion asked.  
Nezumi remembered begging Shion not to change at the correctional facility and cringed at the thought.  
It was his turn to feel guilty now.  
Sitting beside Shion again, Nezumi closed his eyes, trying to push his worst moments out of his mind as he rubbed his eyes.  
Nezumi looked at Shion and gave him a very tired smile.  
"You've certainly changed," he said, before staring at the coffee table before them.  
"It doesn't mean that change is a bad thing,"

Shion followed Nezumi's eyes and he stared at the coffee table as well, nervously fixated on the uncapped pen.  
Shion took in a deep breath.  
"I can't feel any of the things I used to feel," Shion said quietly.  
He fidgeted with the buttons on his jacket as he said "I thought when we'd meet again, things would be different.  
I thought I could take care of you and that I'd be the one to make your life easier...  
You've done nothing but take care of me, though,"  
Nezumi leaned back onto the couch and he shifted his focus from the coffee table to Shion's ceiling.  
It was clear that simple reassurances couldn't be enough to fix whatever Shion was going through.  
That since their departure, the circumstances of his life had built up and ultimately crushed down on him.  
Not that Nezumi could fault him for it, it seemed as though Shion's mental health was more complicated and worse than expected.  
He glanced at Shion, who kept his gaze on the table, and the conversation ran through Nezumi's mind as he thought about ways to relieve the pain.  
Nezumi placed a hand on Shion's upper back.  
"When we were kids, you flew open your window and you took me in," Nezumi said quietly.  
He felt as though he was talking in circles, but where Shion was concerned, he didn't mind repeating himself.  
"You took me in, you took care of me and you gave me something much more valuable than a few hundred dollars and unsolicited advice on a couch,"  
Shion leaned back with Nezumi, still not facing him.  
He made himself more comfortable but kept his arms at his sides as he stared ahead of himself.  
Nezumi put his hand on Shion's hand and Shion turned to look at him.  
Their eyes met and Nezumi was smiling, his expression warm like before, and genuinely happy.  
Shion smiled too before turning away again. He felt his face heating up and he didn't want Nezumi to see it or know about it. Somehow that would be too humiliating.  
That's when Nezumi's voice interrupted his inner thoughts by moving closer to Shion and suddenly whispering in his ear.  
"You gave me these sweats," Nezumi said.  
Shion, who had been lost in the moment, suddenly chuckled.  
Nezumi grinned, shaking his shoulder as he got up to go to the bathroom.  
"If I didn't think you were worth it I wouldn't be here, dressed like a lazy bum in your finest garments,"

Their banter was once again, lighthearted, and for the first time in hours, Shion started to feel normal again.  
He sat in silence, smiling to himself as he thought about Nezumi's sense of humor and his chest began to feel warm, almost like he missed Nezumi without Nezumi even being gone.  
The fact that he not only returned to Shion, but he saved his life, helped save his mother's bakery, helped redecorate his mother's bakery, and had gone so far, that even now, he was comforting Shion as if Nezumi hadn't already done more than enough.  
Nezumi stepped out of the bathroom, wiping his hands on a small towel.  
Shion looked at his hair, his shoulders, the way his figure was slender and the way the clothes he wore seemed to suit him, sweats or not.  
Shion decided to say "Thank you,"  
Nezumi looked at him as he walked over to the kitchen.  
"Why are you thanking me?" he asked.  
Shion watched as he walked and he said "You've done so much for me. It's more than I ever expected from anyone,"  
Nezumi drank from a water bottle before leaning against the counter as he screwed the cap back on.  
"That's because I care about you," Nezumi said. He placed the water bottle back on the counter before turning to face Shion again.  
He noticed the redness on Shion's face had faded.  
Shion's voice was quiet as he looked at Nezumi and spoke.  
"I'm grateful to have someone like you in my life like this... I've been meaning to ask....,"  
Shion scratched his head a bit before nervously looking back up to meet Nezumi's eyes.  
After everything that happened today, bringing up a topic like this felt so out of place, but Shion knew that if he didn't say anything now,  
he probably never would.  
So, whether it was from the exhaustion or the fact that he had depressed himself so much for a good portion of his day, somehow Shion gathered the courage to ask something he never had the strength to ask when they were younger.  
Shion nervously bit his lip.  
"What..... am I to you?"


	10. All Night Long.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shion and Nezumi confess their feelings for each other. Are soulmates real?

Disclaimer: I don't own No.6 or the Peter Murphy song I used as the title. I actually have that song in my head and interpreted it as a love song about two people dealing with life head on, so I wanted to write this chapter to officially make them a couple in this fanfic.

Nezumi stood against the kitchen counter for a few minutes as he tried to process what Shion had just asked him.  
"What am I to you?" rung through his mind like a verse in an old song and it was stuck on repeat as he scraped his brain for honest explanations.  
Unexpectedly, Nezumi was thrown into a situation where he'd have to be honest about his intentions, and although expressing himself through actions and gestures was easy for him,  
finding the words to articulate his feelings to Shion was difficult.  
Nezumi prided himself in being "more mature".  
As often as he scrutinized his past, he found himself thinking about how good it was that he had changed.  
Still, he wouldn't know it in this moment because for as "open" and "wise" as Nezumi was,  
he was frozen stiff.

They had known each other since they were children.  
In Nezumi's life, feelings towards other men and women occurred, but none of those moments were ever permanent like Shion was.  
For a greater part of his adolescence, all he could think about was Shion, whether he was annoyed, or flustered, or he just missed him.  
He considered his past feelings with other people to be like little shooting stars. They were bright and easy to observe, but just as quickly as they happened, they disappeared.  
Nezumi's feelings towards Shion were always like the moon.  
Even when they departed, Nezumi knew that how he felt would always be a constant.  
Even if they never worked out romantically and left each other again, he still couldn't deny Shion's impact on his life in it's entirety.  
This is why even after years of Shion's absence, they could still reconnect within a month's time frame and be this casual,  
even if Nezumi had a hard time saying what Shion wanted to hear.

Shion was visibly uncomfortable.  
Nezumi started walking towards Shion unsure of where to start.  
Actually saying the words he felt out loud was a kind of vulnerability he wasn't ready for.  
For Shion's sake, he had to say something. He had to give Shion an answer, even if Nezumi knew he whole heartedly wished he could just telepathically have Shion feel his feelings for him.  
Because for as well spoken as Nezumi was, and for the charisma and charm he could turn on at the drop of a hat, it did nothing when, as far as situations with Shion were concerned,  
Nezumi felt very bashful.  
As Nezumi sat down on the couch, he took in a breath and they sat in silence for what seemed like hours.  
In reality, it had only been three minutes.  
Shion suddenly turned to look at Nezumi.  
Because Nezumi wasn't facing him, Shion's gaze settled on Nezumi's hair.  
It was dark, stringy, and still wet from their walk home.  
Little droplets had fallen from the tips of Nezumi's hair to his ears and neck, and they glistened under the light in Shion's apartment.  
Shion sighed.  
"I shouldn't have said anything. I should have known the other night when I tried to kiss you,"  
Though rejection felt disappointing, Shion's mood didn't change too intensely.  
Even just being Nezumi's friend was comforting for him, and although he had pictured their lives together to end differently, he knew that he'd rather work through rejection than to lose Nezumi again.  
Nezumi suddenly looked up at Shion.  
He straightened his back and wiped the water from his ear.  
He found himself looking down at his hands soon after.  
"This isn't a rejection," Nezumi said quietly.  
Shion's curiosity got the better of him and he suddenly became eager to hear more.  
As he slowly became aware of himself, he found himself closing off again, not wanting to press the issue or make Nezumi uncomfortable.  
Nezumi's demeanor didn't seem like this wasn't a rejection, but Shion wanted to understand what he meant by that statement.  
That's when Nezumi put his hand on Shion's hand.  
Nezumi's touch was warm, as usual. Shion had felt his hands enough since they met again to know that Nezumi would always be warm, and that his fingers were always going to be long and slender.  
That Nezumi's skin felt dry between his fingers and on the palm of his hand.  
Shion was taken aback and stared at their hands together, entwined.  
"It's amazing how I can genuinely trick myself into thinking that I'm not who I was when we were young, but  
in moments like this I still feel the barrier between us,"  
Shion's eyes had trailed back up to Nezumi's face and they stared at each other for a few seconds.  
"In my life I've never known anyone who could ever take your place or be who you are to me,"  
Shion found himself smiling as he squeezed Nezumi's hand. He somehow understood what Nezumi had meant though because being this vulnerable was a risk.  
All the things that Nezumi had taught him when they were young.. it made sense now.  
Loving someone was a risk and when he lost Nezumi, he remembered how broken he felt.  
Shion was becoming more self aware these days, noticing how certain topics affected him and the differences between how he used to deal with negative things vs. today.  
After you lose enough people being able to get through and live to see the next day becomes so difficult.  
When you feel so attached to someone that they become almost like a part of you is terrifying because, as Shion learned several times over, everything changes and nothing stays the same forever.  
As these things ran through his mind he found his smile disappearing and Shion's face became blank again.  
Nezumi noticed this and he noticed how suddenly, Shion's expression had changed.  
His eyes looked dim again and Shion seemed to freeze in place.  
So Nezumi asked "What's wrong, Shion? This isn't a rejection. I'm telling you that I love you,"  
Shion noticed that word and although he was slipping back into dissociation, it was easier to come back from it because suddenly he felt warm.  
He felt so depressed and so warm all at once. The fear of loving someone to the extent that he did paired with the happiness of knowing Nezumi reciprocated the sentiment.  
It was so strange. This wasn't like he had felt it before.  
"Why can't I just shut up and be happy?" Shion asked himself. He was quiet.  
This was everything he wanted, he was where he wanted to be, and he was beside the only person he had ever genuinely loved.  
Shion struggled to shut off the negative feelings because they kept creeping up on him and they wouldn't go away.  
He wanted so badly to embrace this moment and feel it fully but he couldn't shake the fear that came with the confirmation he wanted so badly.  
It was infuriating that nothing could be simple, and Shion didn't know why it had to be this way with him.  
That's when he felt Nezumi's arms wrap around him.  
Nezumi pulled him closer and as he did, he could smell the scent of Shion's detergent on his shirt.  
Nezumi rested his chin on Shion's shoulder as he said "I'm not sure what you're thinking, but I understand you. It's not easy to process these things and you won't be happy overnight,"  
That's when Shion lifted his arms and held Nezumi back.  
Nezumi felt Shion lean against him.  
"Nezumi, I'm so exhausted. I don't want to feel this way when I should be happy. Things were so different before," he said quietly.  
"We're older," Nezumi said suddenly. He arms wrapped tighter around Shion before leaning back so they could face each other.  
Nezumi pressed his forehead to Shion's and sighed.  
"When we're young everything has magic in it. People are caricatures and our lives are so romanticized that every miniscule thing becomes rosy and special.  
I think a good thing about getting older is that when that all goes away,  
you figure out what really matters... and what matters to me is that you're mine,"

That's when Shion kissed him.

They didn't plan it or think about it. 

It just kind of happened.

The kiss wasn't as cinematic or romantic as their first two, but this one was special in it's own right, because this kiss, unlike the rest, had the promise of stability in it.

Shion pressed his lips against Nezumi's and as they kissed, he almost couldn't believe that this moment had finally come.

He remembered how many days and nights he spent grieving Nezumi's absence just to finally reach this point and as grateful as he was that they were finally together,

Shion didn't want to take anything for granted.

Nezumi leaned towards Shion, pressing him against the back of the couch as they continued their kiss. For a minute or two it seemed as though they couldn't stop, not that either of them thought about it anyways. 

As they pulled away, Shion felt Nezumi's hand touch his face and Nezumi had pulled them together again, without saying a word as they kissed once more.

Nezumi was very much in love and this was obvious with the way he was gentle with Shion. Shion's heart almost skipped a beat because he felt so protected and so loved, but the emptiness inside him didn't seem to go away.

It was a bittersweet moment.

Getting everything he wanted couldn't fix his depression and unfortunately for Shion, he could still feel it inside himself, very much alive, and still as strong as it had ever been.

He felt so warm and so empty and decided that this emptiness was his preferred emptiness, because at least this time, something different was overshadowing it. It was undeniable that Shion felt sincerely and absolutely loved.

As Shion stroked his fingers through Nezumi's wet hair, Nezumi leaned into his touch.

Shion thought about the first night they met and every single moment leading to this moment.

Were soulmates real? Or was it just circumstantial that they seemed to intersect and meet in this way?  
Would this be the equivalent of a first date's kiss because they had grown apart and met again or had they had enough history between them to where a moment like this could be comparable to a kiss between spouses?  
Shion had to stop wondering about these things as their kiss became more heated, and as Nezumi's fingers touched his neck and his fingertips grazed his stomach, Shion knew that he had never been happier, whether or not fate actually existed.

He never felt so understood or so loved by someone that meant this much to him. Knowing that Nezumi felt this way and this strongly, Shion felt secure with him.

Secure enough to where, even if only briefly, the worry he had about being left behind or abandoned had subsided.

Shion's mind was usually foggy but right now, he was able to think clearly and really see how much devotion Nezumi put into their partnership. 

Although Shion's brain had a hard time processing the positive moments lately, he daydreamed about the last few days they spent together, and was grateful that, as if by fate, 

Nezumi had run into his life and saved him from himself.

They had stopped kissing finally, and Nezumi pulled away, flustered.

Shion noticed that Nezumi was trying to catch his breath and that somehow, Nezumi had ended up on top of him as they lied on Shion's couch.

Shion noticed his hand was on Nezumi's bare chest. When had that happened? 

They were still fully clothed. Shion hadn't noticed his hand slip under Nezumi's shirt but he didn't feel bad about it at all.

Shion wasn't going to take it away now because although things were moving faster than expected, Shion didn't want this to stop.

As they adjusted their legs to lay more comfortably, Nezumi found himself gazing into Shion's eyes, and as Shion looked back, he appreciated how beautiful Nezumi looked in his dark clothes with his dark, stringy wet hair. 

Their faces were inches apart and Nezumi's gaze was so intense, Shion couldn't look away from it and as they kissed again, Shion felt warm again. 

It was like, for minutes at a time, Shion found it harder and harder to be angry or be depressed or overthink, and each time they kissed or touched, Shion's mind would get foggy and he couldn't exist anywhere but right here, right now.

Shion, appreciative of this notion, looked up at Nezumi as he wiped his mouth and suddenly, time seemed to stop and speed past them all at once.

It was a blur.

It seemed as though their conversation and Shion's kiss opened the floodgates between them, because somehow right now, rationality be damned, Nezumi and Shion were drawn together like moths to a flame.

As whatever transpired, transpired, Nezumi found himself rethinking what they were doing and wondering if it was too soon.

If Shion's reaction to this was from a good place or if he was using Nezumi, himself as a coping mechanism. Nezumi didn't know for sure.

Nezumi found himself pulling away or trying to stop so he could clear his head and make decisions with more consideration, but it became harder and harder to try because he was so intoxicated by Shion and Shion pulled them back together. 

Nezumi knew he was in love. He never felt comfortable enough to explore these ideas or comfortable enough to even admit it to himself, but as he thought about Shion, completely immersed in their togetherness and their shared feelings,

all Nezumi wanted to do was make Shion happy again.

All Nezumi wanted to do was make Shion feel whole, to feel loved, to feel safe, and to know that they can work through whatever Shion was dealing with.

That if there was a problem in the city and they needed to do something about it again, that Nezumi truly felt invincible if they were together.

They had changed the political scope of No.6 and somehow managed to alter the reality between the cities in present day.

Nezumi was still unsure about the intentions behind No.6 these days, but he knew that regardless, whatever the future brought them, he wanted to spend every day beside Shion,

and he knew that he wouldn't let anything get in the way of their lives together.

Not this time.

Even if he had to always take the weight of Shion's problems or bring Shion back to present day with patience, it was a kind of responsibility that Nezumi felt he had earned in his negligence.

Nezumi felt like he sealed his fate the day he walked away from the rubble and when he grabbed Shion on the roof, he knew the depth of what his decisions had caused. 

Blaming himself wasn't healthy, but after everything, it was hard to look at it in any other way.

Nezumi knew he couldn't take Shion for granted. He couldn't make Shion feel any of the loneliness he had felt before.

He couldn't make him endure the things he endured during Nezumi's absence and after tonight, everything would change. 

There was no returning to how things were before. 

Shion pressed his lips against Nezumi's again as he brushed his fingers through Nezumi's wet hair. 

Touching Nezumi took him out of his head and kept him grounded.

As Shion brushed against the nape of Nezumi's neck, he felt the short hair between his fingers as they continued to kiss.

Being together after so much for so long was both a blessing a curse, to Shion. It was hard not to be overwhelmed having everything fall perfectly into place,  
finally in the arms of the man he had loved the most but unable to embrace it in it's totality.

To be understood and in the presence of someone not only devoted to you in your entirety, but being able to trust them to this extent was a good feeling, if only Shion's loneliness hadn't remained dormant under the surface.

Soon the moment had passed. The clock on Shion's back wall signified that now, it was well after 8 pm.

Nezumi had sat up beside Shion and scratched his head, sobering up as reality sunk in. He felt so good but so guilty. He reminded himself that Shion had initiated this though. Was Shion really so mentally unwell that moments like this could be anything less that blatantly consensual?

Was it Nezumi's call to point at Shion and tell him what he, a grown man, was and wasn't capable of?

His body felt exhausted and Nezumi felt cold as he reached over to pick up his sweatshirt from the floor. 

Nezumi knew that he had made Shion feel better, which was more important than his own self deprecation. 

His entire objective had been to communicate to Shion that he was loved. That it's okay. That Shion could trust him and that Nezumi would take care of him.

Nezumi had hoped that he made himself as clear as humanly possible.

That despite Shion's many insecurities, Shion could at least know that Nezumi would be his one constant.

After several minutes in silence, Shion asked "You don't regret this do you?"

Nezumi was confused. Though it was expected that Shion needed to be reassured, it still caught him off guard after everything they had done.

He thought for sure that Shion would have all the reassurances he needed indefinitely after all of that.

Nezumi, now dressed, sat beside Shion on the couch as he said "No, I don't,"

Nezumi leaned against Shion as Shion yawned. Shion felt Nezumi's arm around him and Shion rested his head against it as he closed his eyes and felt a kind of peace he hadn't felt in several years.

Tomorrow would be another early morning. Shion's mind wasn't racing and he found it easy to drift off to sleep tonight, all because he knew that Nezumi loved him.

They'd have to get up, prepare breakfast for the bakery, and continue their shifts for a good 13 hours. 

Nezumi thought about this too and he thought about what he'd say to Inukashi about travelling, and made a mental checklist of all the things they needed to do tomorrow.

Working beside Shion never really felt like work, though Nezumi, very briefly, questioned the legality of their business practices.

It would be a matter of time until Shion was audited or inspected for working off the clock, but because this was Karan's bakery, Shion was apprehensive about hiring anyone else.

Although their work was consistent, with both of them working together, it was manageable, even if it wasn't exactly ideal, and Nezumi thought about the paper they had received earlier and wondered if maybe they could use this to their advantage for Inukashi's sake.

He'd have to call her tomorrow evening and bring it up to her in conversation.

In the meantime, Nezumi felt his back getting sore.

Though he was wearing clothes again, he felt disgusting, like he needed a shower, and Shion was now asleep and naked on the couch.

Nezumi thought about what his options were.

He could leave Shion on the couch and face a potential confrontation in the morning, possibly because Shion woke up convinced that Nezumi regretted everything,

Or Nezumi could wake up Shion and make him go to bed.

Nezumi shook Shion's bare shoulder. Just because he felt obligated to endure Shion's irrational moods didn't mean that he was keen on putting himself in uncomfortable situations when he didn't have to.

Shion, who had quickly fallen asleep, yawned and looked up at Nezumi.

"what's wrong?"

"We need to go to bed," Nezumi said quietly. He had leaned forward and kissed Shion's forehead before standing up beside the couch.

Shion stretched as he leaned forward and he yawned once again as Nezumi gathered up his clothes from before.

Nezumi gave Shion his jacket and as Shion covered up, they started to walk towards Shion's room.

Shion crawled into bed, seemingly falling asleep with ease, and Nezumi walked to his closet to find a cleaner pair of clothes.

As he moved the hangers, everything was dark. The colors were all worn, rusty, grey or white.

There was nothing bright, nothing pastel, and nothing colorful as Nezumi used to envision.

Come to think about it, both times he had met with Shion before, Shion's clothes had been fairly plain.

Was it really that out of character for Shion's wardrobe to be this dark after all?

Nezumi was unsure.

That's when he found a hanger in the very back of the closet.

Nezumi stopped and squinted his eyes as he touched the fabric and tried to make sense of what he was looking at.

It was a small jacket, women's cut, and it had thick round buttons and a very soft interior.

The exterior was rough; almost like linen but definitely a lot thicker with thick embellishments around the shoulder blades and the ends of the sleeves.

At first Nezumi figured this was Shion's mom's jacket. When that assumption set in, Nezumi felt a wave of sadness overcome him and he pushed the other clothes back into their place as he chose a dark blue sweater from the front of the closet.

As Nezumi dug through Shion's dresser for lounge pants, he then realized that he had seen that jacket before many years ago.

Because Shion had found that jacket on the west end, that had prompted their journey to the city's center, and Shion's need to reconnect with Safu is what fueled their mission.

Nezumi turned on the water and as it poured over him, he sighed.

Tonight was a good night. Tonight made him second guess everything they had learned today and the more they dug, the more unsure that Nezumi was when it came to what they were attempting to figure out. 

Were they preparing for something real? Was it all in their head? Were they chasing imaginary enemies because of one small incident or, by the end of this,

would they have to make sacrifices like they did before?

Were they even prepared to put themselves in that kind of danger twice in one lifetime if it came to it?

Nezumi washed his hair. Then he washed his body.

Then the water ran against his face before he turned the faucets off and grabbed a towel.

If their suspicions did hold any authentic legitimacy, could Shion even handle whatever would come their way, should the circumstances call for them to plan something yet again and rescue Inukashi or Meiko if need be?

The lines between real and imaginary began to blur again. 

As Nezumi brushed his teeth, he decided that making himself stress over something he couldn't prove was pointless. He did it so often but he had to stop himself each time he did, because if he wasn't thinking realistically, he knew he wouldn't be able to accurately help Inukashi or Shion if the time came.

He had to work in the morning and wasting anymore time on a reality he wasn't even sure was real was a waste of sleep.

So Nezumi rinsed his mouth, dried his hands, and turned out the light, trying not to let his imagination get the best of him.

As Nezumi settled in beside Shion, Shion had rolled over and placed his arms around his waist and once more, without even thinking about it,

they began to kiss again.


	11. Despair.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Rikiga's stupid life choices, everyone is now worried about the second coming of the evil No.6.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So..... ..... ...... that baby's name was shion. *insert clown emoji here*
> 
> well not anymore. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own No.6 or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song I used as the chapter title.

Several months passed since Rikiga's bombing incident.  
In this time, Shion began to feel more comfortable with himself because he had Nezumi nearby.  
He felt complete, his work load was cut in half because Nezumi had officially become an employee for his bakery, and their relationship was so much healthier that every interaction and night spent together felt like such a breath of fresh air.  
There were no condescending jabs or frustrated insults anymore.  
Just the two of them, waking up and working together side by side, managing this bakery and bringing in enough profit to keep their lease and to live comfortably yet again.  
Shion was so grateful for Nezumi.  
It was nice to get sick and take a day to rest knowing that someone else would be running his bakery.   
It was nice being able to cook and clean or run errands knowing that everything was wholly appreciated, and it was so relieving to just talk to someone about anything without any fear of judgement, and to have that person reciprocate with just as much effort.  
Shion had fallen in love yet again and this time it was so easy to fall in love so hard.   
In the back of his mind the fear of abandonment was still there, and would probably always be there, but each day that fear became less and less convincing.  
As days went by, they had visited the immigration office several more times to collect documents pertaining to special travel exclusions.  
Nezumi had sent those papers to Inukashi and as weeks passed by, the borders between No.6 and the western district returned to normal.  
After some very light research they had realized that contacting Rikiga would be nearly impossible.  
He was being held at the No.6 West Penitentiary and after the reconstruction of the facilities he had destroyed were finished,   
Inukashi had met up with Nezumi and Shion in their bakery again.

"I feel so foolish for ever being worried," Inukashi said, sighing.  
She was sitting at a small café table near the register with her son Meiko sitting across from her.  
The store had just closed for the evening and the doors were locked so there was no fear of a customer coming in and eavesdropping on their conversation.  
Nezumi had his back turned as he ran dishes through a small dish table while Shion had finished counting the register.  
The register closed and Shion had zipped up the cloth rectangular bag that the money was in as he replied.  
"We probably were just overthinking it,"  
Nezumi had finished his dishes and approached Shion as he towel dried his hands.  
Nezumi's off white sleeves were rolled up and he had dried batter all over his apron as he tossed the small towel aside to kneel below the register.  
"I think our worries had some rationality to them," he said casually as he turned a key and unlocked the safe below them.  
Nezumi had tossed the cloth zip bag into the small safe before closing it again.  
There was a click signifying that it had locked.  
He tugged the small handle on the door just to be sure.  
"I was walking home when I saw everything happen.  
I probably put too much thought into it. Something just seemed really weird to me about how they handled everything,"  
He was now standing with his elbows leaning on the counter and Shion was beside him, untying his own apron.  
Inukashi watched them for a moment, before shaking her head and smirking.  
"What stood out to you the most?" Inukashi asked.  
Nezumi shrugged. Shion had folded his apron on the counter top and was now looking at Nezumi with anticipation.  
He remembered Nezumi coming back and being really uneasy that night so whatever he saw had to have been strange.  
Nezumi said "There was this large van with a device on it. I can't remember what it's called, exactly, but it looked really unusual for the police to use it in that manner.  
Then again, the crime was pretty serious so I'm probably just being ignorant anyways,"  
He looked at Shion.  
Shion made eye contact with Nezumi before aimlessly looking at the countertop.  
Everything had been wiped down and clean so he had a moment to relax, but he thought about how weird it was that Rikiga was even the culprit.  
"What are the odds of Rikiga being the main suspect?" He asked.  
His question seemed rhetorical but Inukashi responded anyways.  
"I thought about it and we never really knew him," She said, watching as Shion exhaled.  
"We were kids and he was a grown man. When we did what we did, you have to remember... he had contacts from No.6 and he....," her voice trailed off.  
Inukashi was suddenly looking at Meiko, who was preoccupied with her cellphone and the half eaten plate of blueberry scones in front of him.  
She nervously looked back at Shion and then Nezumi.  
"You know what I mean," She said quietly.  
Nezumi understood.  
At the time that they knew him, Rikiga really was much older and already involved with nefarious things.  
Nezumi had recalled Rikiga running an illegal prostitution ring and even offering him a position working with him to attract more customers.  
At the time he hadn't thought too much about the degree of depravity that went into the offer he was given, but as he got older, Nezumi understood a little bit better that in that situation,  
Rikiga wasn't just asking for Nezumi to work and attract customers for business.  
Rikiga was a grown man soliciting sex work from a minor.  
While, at the time, Nezumi appreciated Shion's reaction, it didn't occur to him until much later just why Shion was so angry or why Shion had reacted with as much hostility as he did.  
Shion had seen the situation for exactly what it was at the time.  
Shion's voice broke through Nezumi's train of thought as he said "Rikiga helped us do what we needed to do. I'm sure almost all of the footage from that day is gone for good,"  
He continued, saying "Everything was demolished completely. If something were going to happen to us, surely it would have happened by now,"  
That's when Inukashi's phone buzzed.  
Meiko's face had lit up with a bright white glow as he furrowed his brows and read the screen.  
"Emergency.... Ah lert," He said to himself.  
Inukashi looked over at him before grabbing the phone from his hands.  
"Let me see," she said, taking her phone and reading the screen.  
The emergency alert system for the western district often posted small things like traffic accidents or store closings.  
When Meiko read the message, she wasn't alarmed at all, anticipating that this was just another car wreck or weather warning.  
The district was so small that the people living there often kept tabs on what was going on via cellphone broadcast system, and as Inukashi read the words on her screen, she looked confused.  
"Western border closed for repair. Truck accident, three car pile up,"  
She squinted her eyes as she brought her phone closer to her face.  
"Avoid this area,"  
Inukashi looked up at Nezumi and Shion.  
"That's really creepy," She said.  
Nezumi leaned forward as he rested on his elbows before asking "What are the odds of that message coming through right after the conversation we had?"  
"That's really strange," Shion added.  
Inukashi had given her phone back to Meiko as she scratched her head.  
Her long hair was tied into a messy bun again today because her hair was so hard to manage and a few small strands were loosely hanging around her face.  
She nervously put her face in her hands, brushing the strands behind her ears before saying "I don't know if I'll ever be able to trust this new world we're living in,"  
Her eyes were now glassy and her face had turned red.  
Inukashi looked like she was about to cry.  
"It was something so small but I keep thinking that at any moment, all of this is going to go away and that things are going to be the way they were.  
Something like an emergency alert shouldn't make my heart stop like that,"  
Inukashi was now exasperated.  
Shion understood her and ran around the front register so he could hug her.  
As his arms wrapped around her shoulders Inukashi silently cried into her hands before shaking her head and nudging him off of her.  
"Thank you," she said quietly. Her voice was hoarse.   
She cleared her throat.  
"I'm just overreacting. It's okay. I can't lose my cool in front of my boy,"  
Meiko looked uncomfortable when Inukashi reached forward and held his hand.  
"Baby I'm sorry. Mama was just worried for a moment, we'll be fine,"  
Nezumi stood back as Shion comforted Inukashi and as Nezumi thought about it, he had wondered what it would take to contact Rikiga.  
Rikiga was someone he had the least amount of respect for but it was very apparent that until he was able to understand Rikiga's motives and until he was able to see that this wasn't a conspiracy, the past would come back to haunt the three of them.  
Though it wasn't until the night Rikiga was apprehended that Nezumi even worried about anything at all, with how No.6 used to make criminals of people with misinformation, he wasn't sure if they could just ignore this.  
Nezumi said "Inukashi. You and Meiko should come upstairs with us,"  
He looked at Shion as he said "I need to use your computer,"  
Shion nodded.  
-  
The No.6 West Penitentiary was No.6's most notorious prison.  
Although there were laws in place to protect the rights of both the west end and the No.6 citizens, it didn't change the fact that this prison was infamous for how little it cared for it's inmates.  
Nezumi had almost no way of contacting Rikiga; he had browsed for more information, but the mugshot was all he could find.  
He couldn't find a way to mail him a letter or a way to call him.  
He'd probably never know what Rikiga's motives were, if Rikiga even had motives at all.  
There were pages upon pages reporting on how the buildings were reconstructed, what this meant for the security of those buildings and how this affected the families involved,  
but nothing ever detailed why Rikiga did what he did.  
Weird.  
"Nezumi, did you find anything?"  
Shion was now standing behind Nezumi with a concerned expression on his face.  
Nezumi shook his head.  
"We're never going to talk to him again," Nezumi said.  
Shion sighed.  
"Maybe you were right before. Maybe we really did put too much thought into it,"  
That's when Nezumi had an idea.  
"Do you remember the building where we found Rikiga the first time?"  
Shion furrowed his brows. He looked entirely confused.  
"Nezumi, it's been ten years. I really don't. Why?"  
Nezumi looked up in thought as he tried to piece together another plan.  
If he could get in contact with someone close to Rikiga, maybe he could learn more about this and why it even happened.  
There was still a chance that the man Rikiga had fooled had lived long enough to point him out, and maybe because Rikiga was involved in the first destruction of the Correctional Facility, Rikiga was the only known suspect.  
Nezumi tried to weigh the pros and cons of going back into the western district to talk to anyone involved with Rikiga, however.  
He wasn't exactly enthusiastic about speaking to those kinds of people but they needed answers.  
Inukashi and Shion needed closure.  
Nezumi looked at Shion as he said "I think I can figure it out.  
We have a day off tomorrow so I'm going to the west end for some answers,"  
Shion's eyes widened and he winced.  
He thought he had made progress within himself but the idea of Nezumi leaving him behind made him anxious.  
Nezumi put his hand on Shion's face.  
"I really don't want you with me when I go where I'm going. I don't know if you'll be safe,"  
"What about you?" Shion asked.  
His voice was frantic. He hadn't realized he had been loud until Nezumi saw Inukashi turn towards them from across the apartment.  
Nezumi said "I'll be fine. I'll take your cellphone while Inukashi's staying with you and if anything happens, I'll call you,"  
While Shion couldn't control his emotions, in the back of his mind he understood that doing this was necessary.  
After having seen Inukashi cry today, he knew that the stress that they were under was unreasonable. If there was any way to alleviate it at all, they should do what they can,  
even if it means Nezumi has to leave for a day.  
Shion and Nezumi had kissed before Shion walked back to the Livingroom.  
He had become so comfortable with Nezumi's presence that he wasn't sure how he would handle Nezumi's absence again.  
This conflict seemed so childish and immature but he couldn't shake the impending sense of doom he felt.  
No amount of affirmations or logical thinking would make this go away.  
Shion had to live through it and understand for himself that in a relationship, they needed trust, and that in order to move on from the past, especially after being so caught up in something they weren't even sure was true,  
they needed answers.   
They needed closure.  
If not for their sake, for Inukashi's sake.  
Shion was sitting on the couch, staring at the TV.  
The sound was on and Meiko was watching a television show, but the sound was static and Shion almost couldn't hear anything again.  
Inukashi snapped her fingers.  
She sounded like she was underwater.  
"Shion?" She asked.  
Nezumi shook his shoulders.  
Shion shook his head, snapping out of his daze.  
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.  
Nezumi wrapped his arms around Shion and brought him in for a hug.  
He had kissed the side of Shion's head, burying his face in his hair, and when he did, Nezumi's arms held him tighter.  
He couldn't just stop their lives each time Shion had a problem and he couldn't just ignore reality whenever he needed to do something that required them to be separated.  
Nezumi knew that the past had affected Shion this hard and that was even more motivation to find closure from this situation.  
So Nezumi could know for sure that they were safe and for sure, that the future would be peaceful.  
So Inukashi could raise her son without the fear of another cleansing operation and life could sink into mundane monotony as it was intended to.  
At least this time, during this departure, it would be brief and this time, when Nezumi left, he felt secure knowing that Shion had Inukashi and Meiko to keep him company.

As the evening became night,  
Inukashi and her son were asleep, bundled together in several blankets on Shion's couch.  
The lights were off and the reflection of the faint city lights shone through the blinds upon Shion's wall.  
Nezumi had made a cup of coffee and some time after midnight, he had walked into Shion's bedroom again as he prepared to leave.  
Shion was awake, sitting in their bed as Nezumi shut the door behind him.  
"Why can't I go with you?" Shion asked.  
In the dark, Shion's scar looked darker and more obvious.  
It was attractive and nostalgic.  
Nezumi set his coffee cup on the nightstand as he said "Rikiga worked with some shitty people. I don't want you going into that place if you don't have to,"  
Shion was frustrated.  
"What gives you the right to make those kind of decisions for me?"  
Nezumi knew exactly where this was going and it was annoying, but he let Shion continue.  
"You're acting like I can't hold my own, like I'm not a man. I can't handle being separated from you again!"  
Nezumi thought he made himself clear, but for Shion's sake he took a deep breath and exhaled. He couldn't react when Shion was like this because he understood where it came from, even if it was like talking in circles again and again.  
He anxiously scratched his head before saying "You're going to have to trust me this time,"  
Shion defensively brought his knees to his chest.  
His arms rested around his legs and Shion's head lowered towards his knees.  
The blanket was thrown over his lap and he was in a baggy black tee shirt that hung loosely on his shoulders.  
Shion's face looked so attractive when he was brooding and Nezumi had to stop looking at it so he wouldn't be distracted during their conversation.  
Nezumi had to stay serious and maintain his point that Rikiga's part of town was a dark part of town, and that if Shion were to preserve any hope for his humanity then he needed to stay far away from that area.  
Because as ignorant as they were when they were kids, they were older and very perceptive now,  
and if there were any reason at all for Karan to reject Rikiga,  
what Nezumi was sure to find out would surely be it.

From the mugshot Nezumi had printed out before, it was obvious that Rikiga's appearance had aged, and there was no telling what all contributed to that.  
Nezumi knew one thing was for certain though.  
No adult man in his late forties had that kind of acne on his face,  
not unless he was on something.  
Shion didn't need to be there and that was final.  
"I'm not talking about this with you," Nezumi said, finally.  
Shion stared at the foot of his bed, frozen into place again.  
He tried to keep himself grounded so he wouldn't get stuck in his head right now and Shion took that time to move his wrist.  
He had to focus on something unique to present day.  
His eyes focused on the crumpled immigration papers near the edge of his bed.  
"I'll only be gone for one day," Nezumi said calmly.   
His voice was soft and quiet and broke Shion from his thoughts as the bed rustled and Nezumi moved to sit closer to Shion.  
Nezumi's thumb stroked Shion's hand as the distance closed between them and Shion felt the blanket lift from his legs as Nezumi moved under it so they were together.  
Shion nodded, feeling so heavy as Nezumi faced him from beside him.  
Nezumi put his hand on Shion's cheek.  
"I'll only be gone for one day and when I come back I'm not leaving you again," he whispered.  
His eyes locked onto Shion's eyes and Nezumi felt himself blush.  
Even if they had done this again and again and again, it always felt breathtaking being able to be this close to each other, and he was always so enamored, knowing that in this relationship,  
the love was true and it was reciprocated.  
Shion's eyes were so unique and beautiful and as Nezumi scanned his face, he touched Shion's scar and rested his forehead on Shion's.  
Shion held onto Nezumi and whispered "I'm sorry," but he couldn't say anything else because Nezumi had suddenly pressed his lips to Shion's and they kissed.  
Pulling away, Shion noticed that Nezumi's expression had changed and that Nezumi was smiling.  
Although Nezumi had grown to be a handsome man, he was still capable of pulling off an expression that reminded Shion of "Eve".   
His eyes were still just as beautiful and familiar as they had always been.  
"I'm about to leave," Nezumi said quietly.  
He kissed Shion's lips again before saying "I'll take your phone with me so you can reach me whenever you get worried.  
Inukashi is in the Livingroom with her son," he reassured.  
Shion looked away as his expression changed and Nezumi kissed him one more time.  
Shion's fingers wrapped around Nezumi's wrist as Nezumi whispered "I love you. This isn't a kiss goodbye. This is an 'I love you' kiss,"   
Once more they had kissed before Nezumi lifted the blankets.  
He stood up as he straightened his white shirt out and Nezumi's hands brushed the lint from his black slacks.  
He was still wearing Shion's clothes, a routine neither of them thought much about, and as Nezumi walked to the door, he grabbed Shion's thick black jacket.  
"I'm coming back," he said sternly.  
Shion smiled, but he still felt really uneasy about this.  
He didn't want to burden Nezumi with his emotions anymore so he said quietly "Just hurry back," before Nezumi smiled and walked through his bedroom door.  
With Shion's cellphone in his pocket, fully charged, and his jacket zipped and buttoned,  
Nezumi threw his hood over his head as he slipped into his shoes and unlocked the front door.  
He couldn't remember exactly where Rikiga's apartment was, but he remembered the area enough to know which side of town he was on and where Nezumi needed to go to investigate.  
He would have to revert to his old ways and lie to people to get the information he needed.  
This meant that he would also have to manipulate people so he could get what he wanted from them.  
A trait that, in this day and age, he detested,  
but if any progress was going to be made, he'd consider this a valuable sacrifice.  
As Nezumi locked the bakery doors, the brisk winter air blew around him and he turned around to see the trees from the Lost Town streets swaying in the wind.  
Nezumi looked both ways before crossing the road and began his jog towards the city's edge.  
He sincerely hoped that what he was doing today would be an elaborate waste of his time.


	12. Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nezumi learns about Rikiga's motives. Shion is trying to pass the time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I haven't written anything in awhile because basically, we've been battling the elements. 
> 
> Trigger warning: references to Rikiga's past and drug abuse are in this chapter. There are guns and if you're squeamish, someone does get sick. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own No.6 at all nor do I own the chapter title, which is an Offspring song.

Hours had passed since Nezumi left Shion's apartment.  
Shion lied in bed thinking about Nezumi and the way he had taken Shion's cell phone.  
He promised numerous times that he'd be back but something in Shion's gut filled him with bitter skepticism.  
As Shion watched his ceiling, his eyes scanned the stationary ceiling fan as he daydreamed about how it felt to bring an orphaned child to Inukashi.  
How, back in those days, the world seemed to easy to navigate and how, after pulling off the feat that they did, Shion had almost felt invincible.  
After he reconnected with his mother, he remembered how tightly she hugged him and how the scent of her shampoo was so strong that he hadn't realized how something so small was something he used to take for granted in Cronos and Lost Town.  
The contrast between Nezumi's bunker to his mom's apartment was so vast; with the electricity and the insulation, a structure that once seemed like a downgrade felt so much more comfortable.  
Shion thought about the days that followed and what it meant to finish his classes; the way he had so many aspirations for working in the city to change the political infrastructure.  
Shion used to feel like he had a purpose, like he was meant to change the world and that when he achieved his goal, he'd meet with Nezumi again.  
No more genocides, no more famine, so more brutal winters in the West End, no more starving kids, and no more wall.  
Only people coexisting to help and live among each other and nothing would be lost or forgotten.  
Only Nezumi.

Shion remembered his 20th birthday and the way he sat at his dining room table with Karan.  
He thought about the way his mother's hair had become lighter as several stray silver strands framed her face.  
She had gotten a phone call about a medical condition.. she'd never be clear with Shion about what it was, exactly.  
Certain that she'd recover, Karan would watch Shion eat his birthday cake and swore that whatever would happen, she'd survive this and that one day, everything would be a memory.  
Shion regretted believing in her and trusting that after Safu's death, the possibility of losing his mother couldn't be real.  
There had already been so much tragedy; Karan would for sure survive. How could there be two major tragedies in Shion's life just years apart?  
That used to seem impossible.  
And as Karan took care of her bakery, Shion thought about how temporary helping her used to seem.  
He'd have to drive her to the hospital more frequently, but Karan had always insisted he wait in the waiting room for her return.  
"This isn't your business," She'd say "You don't need to be worried, we'll be fine,"  
Prescription after prescription and visit after visit, things only deteriorated.  
Karan's skin had become pale, she had become thin and her speech had become slow.  
In her last days Shion felt immense loneliness and when he knew he'd lose her, he became more aware of Inukashi's absence. More aware that Nezumi had used him.  
More aware that Safu was gone and that she never had to die, and once Karan had passed, every person that Shion used to know felt like empty spaces in a cold room.  
The cold filled Shion's body and only grew as time went on, numbing him until the night he reunited with Nezumi.  
He had been angry to see him because he had imagined a future that was anything but lonely, so much so, that he had given himself headaches.  
He had felt so empty and so isolated that until Nezumi grabbed him, the idea of life or love felt so abstract and alien.  
Shion felt tears slip down the sides of his face and he wasn't sure when he started to cry.  
There was a weight in his chest and because Inukashi was outside of his bedroom, he held in the sob.  
His throat felt constricted, the bedroom felt cold, and the walls were too far apart now.  
His anxiety overwhelmed him into needing small dark spaces.  
He felt chills down his spine and along his arms as his uncertainty grew and he wondered if Nezumi ever meant to return.  
What if Nezumi died too?  
What if, as he lied in bed, the corrupted city of No.6 had lured Nezumi in and was hunting everyone else as well, just like Rikiga?  
There was a knock on Shion's door.  
Shion had jumped, surprised, and the bedroom seemed less abstract and strange now.  
He looked around and tried to stay grounded in reality.  
"Shion!"  
It was Inukashi.  
Shion sat up and wiped his eyes.  
He couldn't let Inukashi know that he had been crying. He didn't want to bother Inukashi with his problems, especially in front of Meiko.  
Shion quietly cleared his throat before attempting to sound unbothered as he asked "Is everything okay?"  
Inukashi paused, seemingly noticing the pain in Shion's voice before she replied "Nezumi just texted me! Do you want to text him back?"  
Shion felt a weight lift from his shoulders as he realized Nezumi had contacted them.  
He knew that his depression was misleading from time to time but now he felt ridiculous for even worrying about anything to begin with. He knew it would happen again and he wished he knew how to stop it.  
The tears in his eyes felt melodramatic and embarrassing so Shion was quick to dry them, wiping his face vigorously with his pillow case before he got out of bed and made his way to the door.  
When he opened the door, Shion could hear cartoon voices from across the room as Inukashi stood, holding her phone.  
She smiled at Shion and he smiled back at her, asking "What did Nezumi say?"  
Inukashi smirked as she walked to the living room to sit beside Meiko.  
As she passed him, her hands stroked tufts of his light brown hair as she softly smiled at him.  
"That's not my business," She teased as Shion pressed the power button on the phone's side.  
The screen lit up and the blue light hurt his eyes in contrast to the dimmer warm lighting of his living room.  
Shion could see his own name as the contact name and the small black words below it as he read a preview of the message.  
"Shion. I'm coming back soon. Everything is ok..."  
Shion smiled at the screen as Inukashi said "I thought that would cheer you up,"  
Her smile gradually went away as she watched Shion's face, concerned with the way the skin under his eyes looked a faint pink.  
She silently observed Shion's facial features as he tried to smile, keeping a false positive demeanor as he did his best to sound hopeful, saying "We should see him soon then!"  
Not wanting to talk about it in front of Meiko, Inukashi glanced at her child before instinctively touching his hand, squeezing his fingers as she smiled at Shion and said "That's the spirit!"  
Shion placed Inukashi's phone on his kitchen counter before turning to walk back to his bedroom.  
Inukashi heard his door shut and the locks shift before glancing at Meiko, patting his hand as she said "I'll be right back,"  
Meiko nodded as Inukashi stood up, quietly walking towards Shion's bedroom door before lightly knocking on it with her knuckles.  
Inukashi crossed her arms as she listened for Shion and she heard his footsteps before he approached the door.  
In moments, the locks shifted and the door knob turned before Shion looked at Inukashi, unsure of what to say.  
Inukashi asked "Can I talk to you?"  
Shion nodded, before turning to sit on his bed.  
As Inukashi entered Shion's room she realized that although she considered him her closest friend, there was still so much she hadn't known about Shion.  
The time they spent together as kids was significant but their lives were so chaotic that she never had the chance to learn that his mother was a baker, that Shion was ever enrolled in special courses or that, the woman who once walked this apartment, had an intense penchant for floral patterns and botany.  
As Inukashi looked around, she saw dark clothes scattered around Shion's floor.  
There was nothing personal on any of his walls and his bedroom had been much darker than she could have ever imagined.  
The only thing that had signified that a room this empty and this monochromatic could ever be Shion's were the framed pictures of Shion's loved ones on the wall.  
Inukashi's eyes settled on a young picture of Karan as she sat beside Shion before carefully asking "Are you worried?"  
Shion wasn't sure how to reply.  
He didn't know where to start and he wasn't sure if any of it made any sense anyways.  
Could he tell Inukashi that No.6 could still be corrupted? That, despite Rikiga's shady background, maybe arresting him and framing him had been a ploy?  
Could he tell her that a part of himself keeps slipping away and that he can't handle it, having to stare at light fixtures and bills to remind himself that history doesn't repeat?  
He spent so long feeling like he was sinking into an ocean and by this point, the longer he remained uncertain, the more he felt like he was lying on the ocean floor.  
Inukashi put her hand on Shion's hand and when she did, Shion looked at her, recognizing the gesture to be platonic.  
Similar to an interaction between a comforting mother and a worried child.  
When Shion looked at Inukashi's face he could understand how time had changed her.  
She used to be afraid of self expression, afraid of getting hurt, and struggled to survive in a world that was crumbling in around them.  
But today they lived in a different time and the young girl Shion once knew had become a mother who, by the look in her eyes, had garnered wisdom and patience through her years with Meiko.  
Inukashi said "Nezumi isn't who he used to be,"  
She took her hand away before looking forward, listening in on Meiko's cartoons from the other room.  
"If you're worried that he won't come back, I think he will,"  
Shion didn't look at Inukashi as she spoke.  
He wasn't sure how she knew what his exact fears were but he figured it must have been obvious.  
Inukashi said "When we were young, the Nezumi I knew was selfish. I feel like that's the only way he could ever feel safe....,  
Just be selfish and you have less to lose. It was the only way anyone could live on the West End...,"  
She sighed. Shion still hadn't said anything but Inukashi could trust that he was listening to her.  
So she continued, "The Nezumi I used to know never valued close bonds with anyone, nor has he ever apologized. I've sensed a change in him after he met you and knowing that he was here, with you, working alongside you in that bakery..,"  
Inukashi chuckled and hearing her laugh made Shion smile to himself.  
"If I could have somehow seen the future while we were planning our revenge and washing my dogs, I would have laughed. You had Nezumi working in a bakery, wearing your sweaters, apologizing to me like it was all second nature,"  
Inukashi sighed a sigh of amusement and relief.  
"He'll come back. I think that's what love does to people,"  
When Shion heard the word "love" his heart jolted in his chest and he lost his breath.  
Inukashi heard Meiko laughing at something from the living room and she leaned back on her arms as she sat beside Shion in a comfortable silence.  
When Shion heard Meiko laugh, he looked at Inukashi and noticed that she looked at peace with herself. Nothing bothered her.  
Even with the prospect that something could be happening on the West End, Inukashi seemed confident that things would be okay.  
Shion wiped the tears from his eyes again as he thought about Nezumi and how, even last night, he wasn't who he had been in the past.  
Shion thought about the way Nezumi respected him, the way they kissed, the way that somehow, roles had reversed and Nezumi was hopeful while Shion had felt bitter.  
Inukashi stood up before putting her hands on her hips.  
She said "You know the city better than I do," playfully.  
Shion looked at her and asked "What do you mean?"  
Inukashi grinned, saying "I think a good way to pass the time is to have breakfast. I think we need to get you some fresh air and us, some pancakes!"  
When Meiko heard his mother Shion heard him gasp and excitedly say "Pancakes?!"  
Shion had to smile at this and the coldness from in his chest began to feel more like warmth.  
He slowly sat up and rubbed his eyes as he grinned before grabbing Nezumi's old black sweater from his dresser.  
As he joined Inukashi in the living room, they prepared for their day and Shion felt more confident about Nezumi's plans to return.  
Nezumi would be back. Nezumi had to come back.  
Nezumi had changed and they started a new life together, Rikiga was probably just losing his mind and if the city of No.6 really was something to worry about then how would Nezumi of all people defend the rebirth of the Western District?  
Maybe the past was just keeping Shion under. Maybe nothing was as bad as Shion thought it was and maybe he needed to take more control of his emotions and embrace reality.  
As they walked through the door, Inukashi's phone had buzzed.  
She grabbed it as they walked through the door without bothering to read the screen.

Nezumi stood in front of a large brick building in the industrial part of the city and he looked at the phone screen, frowning.  
He was sure that this was the building they had met Rikiga at as teenagers but with all the renovations, he couldn't be sure.  
He had asked if Shion could video chat him but he wasn't going to wait around all day for an answer.  
So as the cold wind blew, Nezumi adjusted the hood over his head before walking forward, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets and squinting his eyes as he looked up towards the tall brick building before him.  
There were exposed pipes on the lot to the right and what looked to be a kind of dilapidated warehouse.  
The surrounding areas were full of orange cones, overpasses, mounds of dirt and construction vehicles, empty and resting uselessly as the wind blew loose dirt in Nezumi's direction.  
He shielded the breeze with his hand as he walked forward, noticing homeless people to his left and right and wondering if this establishment had even changed since the renovation of the Western District.  
The smell of dust and mold filled the air as Nezumi opened a loose glass door.  
His shadow extended before him as he walked into a dark corridor and from the looks of the interior, it was obvious that this building, which had been abandoned for at least a decade, still maintained electricity of some sort.  
Nezumi knew this because at the tip of a familiar stair well had been a familiar orange, warm toned light and he realized that this was where he and Shion had met Rikiga for the first time.  
Nezumi started to walk towards the stairs when he felt something pushed against the back of his head.  
He couldn't be certain but he had the sickening feeling in his gut that it had been a gun.  
A man's voice asked "Why are you here?"  
Nezumi wasn't sure if Rikiga had any enemies or if, regardless of what Nezumi could say, he even have any options, so he said "I was just passing through,"  
The barrel of the gun jabbed against Nezumi's head and he winced, trying not to become to jumpy as he felt his heart beating in his throat.  
Nezumi's eyes widened as the man said "I don't trust you,"  
Nezumi was petrified.  
All he could think about was Shion and Inukashi.  
There was a chance that hunting down Rikiga and finding info on him could be a useless endeavor.  
There was still a possibility that even being here today, after walking for miles in the cold, was all wasted time, and that whatever Nezumi was doing here was almost completely pointless.  
He could die right now because he had trust issues with the city of No.6 and the word may never get back to Shion.  
All he was going off of was a hunch and as he took in his situation, standing in the cold warehouse surrounded by darkness, he wondered if even coming here today was logical or rational at all.  
Nezumi felt foolish and now he could die because of it.  
Nezumi sighed, exasperated.  
The exhaustion settled over him like a heavy weight on his shoulders.  
Without moving, Nezumi replied to the man, saying "I didn't mean to intrude,"  
The barrel of the gun was still pushed squarely against the back of his head as Nezumi reluctantly continued "I was just trying to found out information on a man named Rikiga,"  
The gun went away and Nezumi winced.  
He braced himself because he wasn't sure why the gun went away or what was going to happen because he said anything.  
The voice behind him calmly asked "How do you know Rikiga?"  
Nezumi tried to control his breathing as he quietly said "Rikiga was once close to me. He helped me accomplish something. I came to talk to someone about Rikiga,"  
To Nezumi's astonishment and relief, apparently the words he had said spared him because the man who pointed the gun at him had walked around to look at Nezumi in the face with disbelief.  
"Eve?!" The man asked, confused.  
When Nezumi looked at the man, he noticed that he was taller, had stubble for facial hair, and the bags under his eyes gave him an exhausted appearance.  
The man wore a black cap, a thick grey jacket, and what looked to be an old pair of jeans with a tee shirt.  
When the man looked at Nezumi, he gave Nezumi a look of disbelief followed by a smile of familiarity.  
It was obvious that this man had attended Nezumi's theater shows and that "Eve" was memorable enough to save Nezumi's life.  
Nezumi smiled, hoping that he could still emulate the persona he used to know.  
He tried to get into that headspace but recognizing where he was, what these people did, and that these people were armed made everything challenging.  
As the man put his gun back in his holster he apologized, saying "Rikiga used to talk about how much he admired you,"  
Nezumi smiled, hoping that the disgust he felt in his gut wouldn't be visible as the man laughed, nudging him.  
The man was acting as though they had an inside joke together and that Nezumi was somehow in on it just for knowing Rikiga's name as he said "He said you could have made us some good money! It's shame you never worked with him!"  
The man grinned as he led Nezumi to a dark stairwell at the far corner of the right side of the building.  
As they walked along the concrete floor, the man's voice echoed through the warehouse as he said "Before the laws changed you had so much potential. You could be rich right now,"  
"This man has a gun," Nezumi thought to himself bitterly.  
He was angry but the anger remained dormant as Nezumi pretended to be flattered, nervously laughing as he followed the man up the stairs.  
He remembered walking on these stairs with Shion when they were young and as he reflected on it, he felt chills down his spine when he realized just where they had gone and who Shion's mother had directed them to.  
Obviously, when Karan had known Rikiga, he was someone completely different.  
As Nezumi looked over the guard rail, there was nothing but blackness below them and he wondered if his ignorance was even worth it as he reflected on his teen years.  
He was aware that the world was filled with deplorable people but though he kept his guard up, it was only dumb luck that had spared him and Shion when they had come here that day.  
Nezumi gripped the guard rail so tightly that without looking, he knew his fingernails and knuckles were white.  
He knew that his blood was boiling with each second that passed and he daydreamed, bitterly, about what it could have been like to destroy this building as well.  
The silence was deafening and Nezumi noticed that they were approaching a dimly lit hallway on the second floor.  
There was tension in the air and Nezumi felt concerned that the man with the gun could begin to distrust him if Nezumi remained too guarded.  
In the most casual voice he could muster, Nezumi asked "Do you know why Rikiga would bomb a building?"  
The man shrugged, saying "I don't know... Rikiga kind of lost it all a few years ago. I worked for him and because of him, my family didn't starve when times were tough,"  
"This man has a gun..," Nezumi reminded himself internally "This man has a gun. Getting angry at him will get you killed. You have to protect Shion,"  
"That's nice," Nezumi said softly. As soon as they made it to the top, the man said "Maybe someone like you could talk to Cho.  
After Rikiga took down that wall, he would always come back talking about how he was inspired by Eve and her friends to change the world. If it weren't for you, my kids would still be struggling to keep warm.  
I almost can't believe that this is the same place we used to know," The man chuckled warmly, with fondness in his voice as he said "I can't thank you enough for giving Rikiga the courage to take down No.6!"  
When the man spoke, Nezumi could hear the honesty in his voice and a part of him wondered how someone with enough humanity to care about the well being of his own kids could ever work or associate with a man like Rikiga.  
When they used Inukashi as a decoy, it had been far too easy for Rikiga to contact someone who would be interested in her.  
At the time Nezumi saw their predicaments as means to an end, but as he lived afterwards, thinking back on it, reality would eventually set in and when the dust settled, he was completely disgusted.  
As they approached the second floor, Nezumi quietly took in a deep breath. He had to calm down. He had to find information on Rikiga and he had to figure out if Shion and Inukashi were in danger.  
The fact that Rikiga had lied about what happened in No.6 was only a bitter afterthought as Nezumi suddenly caught the faint whiff of something chalky.  
The smell was weird and chalky.. followed by something that smelled like burnt metal.  
Nezumi tried to think up what this could have been, having burned metal parts and furniture to keep warm, but nothing in his memories had matched this.  
It was highly unusual and when he realized that his guesses drew blanks, the only other explanation could have been.... Nezumi felt nauseous.  
Before Nezumi could question why he decided to put himself in this position, standing at the top of a stairwell, like a stupid fly flying straight into a spiderweb, he thought about Cho and how that must have been someone close to Rikiga.  
Cho could possibly have information on whether or not Rikiga was set up and if Cho was close enough with Rikiga, she would be able to help Nezumi fill in the blanks in his mind.  
He'd have to control his temper and he'd have to be nonchalant today. It would either give him the information he needed to devise a plan to save Shion, or it would be a waste of his time and he could think about it as he slept the day away tomorrow.  
As the man opened Cho's door, the lights from inside were warm and bright and her apartment was small and efficient.  
From the doorway Nezumi could see a couch, a bed, a wooden dresser and an outdated television set.  
Upon the woman's dresser had been address books and a roll of baggies, there were plastic bottles upon her floor, and then, beside the door was a small dining room table.  
Nezumi tried not to make a face as he awkwardly waved at the woman, choosing to sit at one of her chairs beside the table.  
The woman, Cho, had looked familiar and she was sitting on a small couch, wearing a rose colored sweater with dark grey sweatpants as she set something down in an ashtray before her.  
Nezumi almost felt like throwing up when the chalky smell from outside became stronger and as the woman looked at Nezumi through a faint haze of smoke, she angrily shouted "TOEI! WHY DID YOU BRING HIM HERE?!"  
There was panic and anger in her voice as she shouted at the man that Nezumi had suspected was Toei.  
Toei leaned against the door, saying "He knows Rikiga well," as the woman tried to waft away the smoke with one of her throw pillows. She looked at Nezumi, angrily, saying "Rikiga isn't here! Rikiga is in jail! I have nothing for you!"  
"Yes you do," Nezumi said quietly.  
Bold.  
The words hung in the air as the woman gave Nezumi a look of incredulousness, and as she examined his face, he tried not to breathe in whatever was around them.  
Nezumi carefully covered his nose with his hand, before saying "I came to talk to you about Rikiga,"  
Whatever was in the air was giving him a headache and making his eyes glossy. He didn't trust it and he didn't want to be here.  
Above all else, if No.6 had somehow gained footage from the day the correctional facility fell, Nezumi also didn't want Shion and Inukashi to be jailed.  
To Nezumi's surprise, the woman suddenly squinted her eyes at Nezumi, tilting her head as she leaned forward and asked "Why should I trust y-"  
Suddenly, before Cho could finish her sentence, the stress line in her forehead had gone away as her expression softened. She said quietly "Eve," and Nezumi gave his best fake smile. He was nervous and uncomfortable and because of this, he wasn't sure how long he could play pretend with these people.  
The woman smiled back at Nezumi before saying softly "You're the one who inspired Rikiga to destroy the wall...," She looked almost as though she were going to cry and Nezumi couldn't understand why.  
The woman said quietly "Rikiga's in jail because he was such a hero. He couldn't have done it if you didn't encourage him,"  
Nezumi's expression became blank as he tried not to look too obvious with his disdain.  
Feeling anything for anyone here would be a feat; while Nezumi regretted how selfish he had been in the past, in this instance, his apathy from before had flooded through him uncontrollably.  
Cho continued, "Because of Rikiga's sacrifices, the whole West End changed for the better. Rikiga did that for us and it gets better every day," she sighed, shaking her head.  
Nezumi was highly annoyed but he tried to calm down and maintain his composure as he crossed his legs.  
Of course Rikiga would return home and rewrite history in his favor.  
The man was a pervert and a cheat; Nezumi should have suspected nothing less.  
Nezumi's eyes wondered as Cho droned on about Rikiga's "kind heart" and as she did, Nezumi thought about the past and he knew that, when times were tough, she had been one of the more fortunate ones.  
He noticed that her bed was nicer than the beds he'd typically see around the West End.  
The woman must have had access to fresh fruits and vegetables when she wanted; He could have guessed that while he and Shion struggled to find warm water, Cho and Rikiga must have never gone without.  
While today the corners of her ceiling was filled with cobwebs and cracked walls, back then, she had lived with heat and electricity while the rest of the West End froze ruthlessly.  
Rikiga had known a life before the fall of the West End and rather than use his knowledge to provide for others, he had devised a business that only took advantage of those who were unfortunate. Their collaborations were in no way fair, and that much was obvious with the way Rikiga carried himself,  
always sure to have fresh whiskey and sure to have his suit cleaned perfectly while everyone else had gone without.  
"It's no wonder a woman like Karan rejected him," Nezumi thought to himself. As he did, he kept his hand above his nose, regularly reminding himself to lift his brows to feign intrigue and to keep his negative facial expressions at a minimum.  
Memories of wondering in the snow, shivering, looking for shelter filled his mind and as the woman's chatter became inaudible background noise, Nezumi recalled the desperation and fear he used to feel.  
The same fear that many people on the West End had felt when No.6 had failed them.  
The kind of fear that Cho and Rikiga understood from a distance, and that, despite the harsh conditions and their fortunate positions, commonly disregarded as they pushed people to work for them.  
The woman had stopped talking and her expression was friendly as she waited for Nezumi to respond.  
So Nezumi, trying to choose his words carefully said "I came here to ask you about Rikiga's motives...,"  
He did his best to feign concern in his voice and his ploy seemed to work because the woman in front of him had taken him seriously. She looked at Nezumi with an endearing expression as though they were about to discuss anyone but a man who manipulated and preyed on people.  
Nezumi strummed his fingers on the dining room table before quietly asking "Why did Rikiga bomb that building?"  
He leaned forward and when he did, Nezumi's body language made him look intimidating to the woman.  
He had meant to stay casual but subconsciously, his annoyance began to seep through.  
Nezumi's elbows rested on his knees and his silver eyes watched her as he kept his slender fingers over his mouth and nose.  
His voice was serious and had Nezumi not been the same person that Rikiga doted over, he was sure that those words and his posture would incite a violent reaction from this woman.  
Instead, the woman looked at Nezumi with familiarity as though she had known him, and tufts of her mousy brown, wavy hair, fell over her shoulders as she reached forward and set something inconspicuous down beside the ashtray on the table.  
Nezumi assumed, by the sound of it, that it must have been a lighter.  
The woman asked "Why do you care? It's already done,"  
Her tone was less accusatory and more concerned; So Nezumi did his best to ease up on his appearance and he clasped his hands together, wincing as the chalky smell around them overwhelmed him.  
He cleared his throat uncomfortably, before saying "Rikiga was a hero to me,"  
When the words escaped Nezumi's mouth, he kept his face stoic, but inside, he felt like screaming.  
Rikiga was only a pawn to Nezumi and would never amount to anything like Inukashi or Shion had.  
Rikiga was a disgusting old man and all he had ever been good for was getting them from point A to point B.  
As Nezumi reflected on Inukashi, his heart felt like it was sinking and he felt anger coursing through his blood as he wondered who else Rikiga had betrayed in that aspect.  
The man who had come to greet her was familiar with the situation enough to come unarmed; who else did Rikiga let this happen to?  
The woman definitely couldn't read Nezumi's mind because she was smiling at him sweetly now.  
She said "Rikiga did always love us.. he was such a good man,"  
The woman began to pout as she wiped her eyes and Nezumi felt the empathy within himself become cold, almost like snuffing the light of a candle.  
As she wiped the tears from her face, he could only pretend to be concerned as she said "That bastard city....they were full of corrupt politicians, I'll tell you,"  
As she wiped her face with her palm, the lady sniffed, before looking towards her ceiling as her aged face contorted in pain.  
She said "Rikiga set out to change the world again. He was going to make it better for us,"  
She sighed, shaking her head. Nezumi asked "What was he fighting against?"  
She said "That city.... they hire the worst kind of people....," she looked at her ashtray nervously before tucking her hair behind her ear.  
Considering where she was, that was a loaded statement.  
"Rikiga set out to be a hero one last time. He was going to destroy No.6 and save us from corruption on the West End,"  
Nezumi was curious and now the conversation had piqued his interest. Much like Rikiga, Cho was only a means to an end and much like Rikiga, she was only useful for the information she could provide.  
Nezumi asked "What's going on with the city and the West End?" and when he did, the curiosity in his voice was genuine.  
The woman said, in a very dramatic voice "The towers they're erecting... don't look too close at them," She pointed as though one of the aforementioned towers was in the room with them, protruding from the ceiling.  
As she did, Nezumi had a suspicion that she was making a fool of him.  
Why did he think she would be honest with him? She didn't even know him.  
Of course she was lying.  
The woman said "I read online that they radiate chemicals to give us cancer. That city is trying to kill us again,"  
Nezumi curiously watched as the woman droned on and on about these towers, gradually switching from mildly intrigued to bored and annoyed.  
As the woman described the situation further, her explanation sounded less plausible and more like she assumed Nezumi was an idiot.  
Whatever Rikiga plotted was confidential and Cho made certain of that.  
As Nezumi grew bored, the tension in his neck and head gave him a mild headache.  
Finally, the woman finished her escapade as she concluded "...and that's why he did that. He did that to save us.  
Because they were going to take our people and sell them to-"  
"Like Rikiga did,"  
Nezumi had decided that he had enough.  
The woman looked at Nezumi with mock confusion before asking "What are you saying?"  
She knew exactly what he was saying.  
"Don't play stupid with me," Nezumi thought to himself angrily.  
Nezumi remembered the man with the gun outside so he tried to smile the most serene smile he was capable of.  
He knew that this woman was playing stupid with him and despite her dramatic demeanor, he knew that she knew what he was talking about.  
She wasn't stupid.  
So Nezumi said softly "I said... Rikiga did. Rikiga did save us,"  
The woman eyed Nezumi suspiciously for several moments before she took a breath.  
If she had any guilt for the way she acquired this apartment, she was doing her best not to show it, and she pretended to be ignorant as she sat in silence, waiting for Nezumi to incriminate himself again.  
It felt like the first time Nezumi had met Rikiga all over again with the exception being that the person he despised right now was this woman instead of Rikiga himself.  
The woman's voice was low as she asked "Why are you really here?"  
She switched from being melodramatic to alert and guarded.  
Nezumi dropped his Eve act as he said "I'm here to learn more about the city's reconstruction plans,"  
Nezumi's voice was serious and now he and the woman were making eye contact.  
The woman looked visibly uncomfortable but Nezumi didn't flinch.  
His expression was stoic and his gaze was icy as she said "Who are you?"  
"Eve." The response was curt and Nezumi's voice was low.  
He said "Rikiga knows something that I don't know but I can't contact him. Rikiga bombed that building and I need to know what he knows and why he did it,"  
Nezumi tilted his head as the woman began to glare at him.  
He added "That city isn't above being heinous. We both know that. I'm trying to figure out the extent of what they're doing...,"  
as Nezumi's voice trailed off, the woman's door quietly opened and he heard footsteps as they walked towards him.  
The man's voice was familiar as he said "Are you looking for money?"  
"No," Nezumi said seriously.  
He kept his eyes locked on the woman he was talking to and hoped that the man from before didn't take his gun from his holster.  
"I know all about the money you make here. I know all about who Rikiga was and how he earned his connections,"  
Nezumi had half the mind to insult this woman and her squalor.  
How can you live comfortably in this disgusting little hole knowing what Rikiga did?  
How can you keep yourself at peace knowing that years ago, you took advantage of people's misfortune?  
This wasn't a business, this was a pigsty.  
Nezumi would have scolded himself for being so open, had he the time, but he became hypervigilant as footsteps made their way up the staircase. His breath was caught in his throat again as he stood still, not even breathing.  
Confident that Nezumi knew more than he initially led on, the woman asked "Did you work closely with Rikiga when the wall fell?"  
Nezumi didn't avert his eyes as he responded "Yes."  
His voice was stern and the woman's body language changed as she reached towards her ashtray, pushing it towards Nezumi as if to offer whatever was in it to him.  
Nezumi put his hand up to silently decline as the woman asked "What are your intentions with this information? Are you going to contact the police?"  
Nezumi hadn't even considered that yet and now that the option was on the table, he knew it was something he wanted to do.  
Evidently, Toei and Cho were joined by someone else and unsurprisingly, he hadn't been so trusting.  
As the barrel of a gun pushed against the back of his head, he gave a sarcastic chuckle before saying "I wouldn't do that to you," before insisting "I'm trying to save myself as well,"  
As Nezumi sat in the dining room chair, the severity of his situation became more apparent the longer that he felt the gun barrel against him.  
Like before, for the first few seconds, the sensation almost didn't feel real, but the longer he felt it there, the more he felt like panicking.  
If he moved suddenly, they could shoot him.  
The woman said "What is it that you think I do, Eve?"  
As the woman spoke, her tone was accusatory and she didn't blink as she stared Nezumi in the eyes.  
Recognizing that Nezumi was not in the position to gamble with his answers, he stayed quiet as the woman said "Every choice Rikiga has made was for our well being. To save us. To save our people,"  
Suddenly, Nezumi could feel his phone as it buzzed in his pocket and he hoped that neither the man nor the woman could hear it as Nezumi slowly shifted the jacket to keep the pocket lining from touching the wooden chair.  
He tried to play it off as though he were merely crossing his arms and as they watched each other, the woman said "He made the choice that he made because we are not dying at the hands of that evil city,"  
"I'm not interested in discussing the morality behind your life choices," he said defensively.  
The gun barrel against his head had gone away as Nezumi continued "I'm trying to figure out what Rikiga's motives were to bomb the building so I can figure out if No.6 is going to deploy a second cleansing operation,"  
The words hung in the air as both the man and the woman exchanged looks of fear.  
The idea of No.6 pulling a stunt like this after doing so much to repair it's image did seem almost unrealistic, but Nezumi knew that they couldn't immediately dismiss the possibility.  
If there was a time to ask questions, it was today, and if there was a time to act on his paranoia, it would have to be sooner than later.  
The man who put the gun against Nezumi's head placed his gun back in his holster before crossing his arms, asking "Were you there when the wall fell?"  
"Yes," Nezumi said, annoyed. How many times did he have to say this?  
"I know Rikiga, I know the truth about No.6 and I know that right now, Rikiga is in prison and I want the details on why,"  
Nezumi's icy gaze switched from the woman to the man as he said "It's in your best interest that you tell me everything you know about Rikiga's motives.  
Because if need be, I can stop this,"  
The man rose an eyebrow at Nezumi, scoffing. If anyone else had given him that kind of retort, they would, undoubtedly, have their brains blown against the walls.  
Because this was Eve and someone who had worked closely with Rikiga to end the genocides, the man listened intently as the woman said "I'll tell you, then,'  
Before the woman continued talking, she pointed to Nezumi's right.  
"That phone," she said. "Give it to me,"  
Nezumi hesitated.  
He didn't want this woman nor the company she shared to look at Shion's phone or learn anything about him.  
He didn't want her to know anything about Inukashi, Meiko, or Lost Town.  
Just as Nezumi was about to object, he felt another gun against his cheek and realized that a third man had walked through the door and joined them.  
Now three men with guns were surrounding Nezumi and yet again, a gun was pushed against his head against his will.  
Nezumi was being threatened and he felt the severity of their threat as he lost his breath yet another time today.  
Nezumi carefully reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out Shion's phone only to have the woman grab it and toss it to the floor.  
Immediately, Toei's black boot came down and crushed the phone to pieces.  
The screen cracked and the pieces of glass shone brightly, discolored as he moved his foot down and stomped the phone again.  
Nezumi's eyes widened as he watched the phone shatter and the woman said "This is the only way we can continue,"  
The door behind him shut abruptly and the woman clasped her hands together, saying "If I talk to you about Rikiga's motives, we need to establish trust between us,"  
Her eyes met Nezumi's intently and before she said another word, she threatened "If a single cop steps foot into my territory, you will die today,"  
Miles away, Shion watched Inukashi's phone screen as it dimmed and they sat together at a restaurant booth as Shion said "I guess he's busy,"  
Inukashi smiled at him as she assured "We'll hear from him soon," and they sat together, waiting patiently for their breakfast to come.  
As Shion listened to the friendly chatter of the restaurant, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.  
He looked at Inukashi and then at the people in the restaurant, unsure of what was coming over him.  
He suddenly felt dizzy and it came so quickly that Shion couldn't explain it. It wasn't like anything he had felt before, seemingly different from a common cold or food poisoning.  
His depression would come and go in waves but this time it had been accompanied by something similar to nausea.  
Shion felt his stomach twist and turn as he quickly stood up and searched for a restroom before saying anything about where he was going or why.  
As Inukashi watched him, she and Meiko sat together, and she kept her arm around Meiko's shoulder as Shion stumbled into the men's room and shut the door.  
As Shion disappeared, Meiko asked "What happened to him," and Inukashi, concerned, kept Meiko close as she said "Mind your business,"

It wasn't long until Shion swung open the door to the farthest stall and without warning, bile began to come up in his throat, stinging him, before he threw up, holding the toilet bowl to keep balanced.  
He felt disgusting and his eyes began to water.  
His felt so cold from the inside out and his hands started to visibly shake as he grasped the bowl, heaving again.  
Shion felt his head pound as he watched the water in confusion, wondering how he had gotten sick and what had happened to him just now.  
"Something is wrong with me!" Shion thought frantically.  
He tried to clean himself up but his arms were shaky and Shion tried to stand upright, but his legs weren't moving.  
He didn't have a fever but his body felt weak and in the back and side of his head, his skin felt bruised.  
Shion touched his head, but there was nothing there. No blood, no bruising.. what was happening?  
Shion couldn't explain what was going on and he felt humiliated as he stood up and flushed the toilet.  
He went to wash his hands and rinse his mouth out when Nezumi crossed his mind again.  
Talking to Inukashi had calmed his nerves and being at this restaurant would pass the time. Shion felt sick being in public but he calmly tried to tell himself that before he knew it, this would all be a memory and that Nezumi would come home and everything would be fine.  
He couldn't assume that No.6 was plotting anything without any proof and if what he saw from the West End and Inukashi were any indicators for how good things had gotten,  
then today would be a walk in the park.  
After Shion was sure that he had cleaned himself up, he staggered towards the door, feeling weak and exhausted as he pushed it open.  
The bright lights stung his eyes and the room felt like it was spinning as Shion made his way back to his booth.  
At this exact time, Nezumi was sitting in a room surrounded by people, listening to Cho as she spoke.  
She said "My business has declined. I'm sure you know.  
I had to switch my markets in order to keep the money good,"  
After Cho said this she gave Nezumi a look before saying "No.6 is expecting us to believe that their renovations are in our favor. Yet when I see the laws being passed and the construction being done, I remember how easy it is to fall again,"  
Nezumi looked at Cho, listening, as she continued "Selling the product that I make has been the only constant. People no longer need me. People can make money in other ways. There are no more days scrounging for garbage in dumpsters or rotted food at markets...,"  
The woman trailed off. Nezumi couldn't comprehend how Cho's assessment could be anything but positive and decided to keep his mouth shut on that.  
She said, finally "I can't be at peace or promise my constituents peace until the last evil is eradicated,"  
" 'the last evil'....?"  
Nezumi was confused by Cho's words and as he looked at her, he had hoped for clarification.  
Cho said "It was only by chance that the people who destroyed our town the first time died during the fall. There will be new people to take their place if enough of them think about it,"  
Nezumi leaned forward, listening closely as Cho added "Rikiga was targeting Yoming,"  
"Who is Yoming?" Nezumi asked.  
Cho shook her head before giving Nezumi a look of disgust.  
"Yoming will be our undoing," Cho said angrily.  
"He is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Then again...," Cho shot Nezumi a look and Nezumi watched her as she said "You know all about that,"  
As Nezumi sat, he tried to think about whether or not he knew a Yoming and tried to figure out how that name sounded familiar.  
Yoming, Yoming...  
Nezumi knew that name from somewhere but he couldn't be sure.  
He sat in his chair, listening as chatter erupted around him about the evils of Yoming and the heroic rise and fall of poor old Rikiga.  
Given what Cho had told Nezumi before, he couldn't be too sure about what she was telling him now because through her, the truth always seemed distorted.  
Rikiga had a habit of lying and twisting the words around in his favor when it suited him so if Nezumi was given the opportunity to leave today, he knew he'd have to investigate further on Yoming for himself.  
After a few moments, Cho looked at Nezumi and said "You can leave,"  
Nezumi looked at her, confused, and asked "Is that all?" His voice was genuinely surprised as Cho gave Nezumi a look of determination.  
"Rikiga was after Yoming. Yoming wants to destroy the West End...," Cho was now visibly agitated and she pointed at Nezumi saying "Protect our people and do not make me regret this!"  
As Nezumi stood up, he cautiously started walking towards the door.  
His mind was racing too much for him to process the information he had learned, and although he suspected that Cho and her company had trusted him, the possibility of dying hadn't left his mind.  
With his hand on the door knob, he felt fear, having his back towards the men in this room.  
As Nezumi twisted the door knob, he heard the door creak and the squeal from the door's rusted hinges almost made him jump as he stepped outside.

At this time, Shion was back at the restaurant as Inukashi asked "Are you feeling okay?"  
Shion smiled sheepishly, saying "I'll be fine,"  
His eyes were downcast and Inukashi knew that not having Nezumi around had deeply bothered him.  
She had done her best to keep him company but nothing seemed to suffice.  
It was clear that Nezumi had been someone very important to Shion and as Inukashi watched him, she thought about Meiko and how, until she found her son, the loneliness she had felt was once heavy on her heart, too.

Shion's voice had been hoarse and he was leaning over the table as he tried to shield his eyes from the light above them.  
Inukashi put her hand on Shion to comfort him and said "Nezumi is probably on his way back now," 

Shion smiled at Inukashi's hand before glancing at her phone again before softly saying "Yeah.... I really hope so,"


End file.
